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COMPARATIVE  ART 


COMPARATIVE  ART 


BY 


EDWIN    SWIFT    BALCH 

Author  op  "Mountain  Exploration" 

"GLACifeRBS  OR  Freezing  Caverns" 

"Antarctica" 

'Roman  and  Prehistoric  Remains  in  Central  Germany' 

"  Savage  and  Civilized  Dress,"  etc. 


PHILADELPHIA 

Press    of   Allen,    Lane    &   Scott 

1906 


M  5 


M^' 


Copyright,  1906 

BY 

EDWIN    SWIFT    BALCH 


COMPARATIVE   ART. 


PART  I. 
INTRODUCTION. 

Idea  op  Book.      Comparison  of  Arts.      Comparative  Sciences. 
Critical  Faculty.    Races  of  Men.    Geodogical  Time.     Apology. 

The  fundamental  idea  underlying  this  monograph 
is  to  make  an  examination  and  comparison  of  the 
fine  arts  of  as  many  races  as  possible,  and  of  the 
resemblances  and  differences  between  these  arts, 
to  see  whether  any  new  light  can  thereby  be  shed 
on  man  and  his  history. 

In  other  words,  this  is  an  attempt  to  look  from 
an  esthetic  standpoint  at  what  man  has  produced 
in  the  esthetic  arts,  and  to  see  whether  anything 
can  be  learnt  about  man  therefrom,  or  to  put  it 
still  differently,  it  is  a  study  of  art  for  the  sake  of 
science. 

A  comparison  of  the  arts  of  the  different  races  of 
men  of  to-day  should  throw,  it  would  seem,  some 
light  on  the  esthetic  and  mental  similarities  and  di- 
vergences between  these  races.  And  in  the  same  way, 
a  comparison  of  the  arts  of  the  races  of  the  present 
with  those  of  the  arts  of  the  races  of  the  past  should 
enable  us,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  gauge  the  develop- 
ment of  our  early  ancestors. 


15l(Vt7 


6  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

To  carry  out  this  idea,  I  have  examined,  either 
in  their  homes  or  in  museums,  as  many  art  works  of 
as  many  races  as  possible,  then  I  have  studied  pho- 
tographs or  illustrations  of  such  objects,  finally  I 
have  tried  to  cull  from  the  statements  of  travellers 
and  scientists  something  about  the  art  of  races 
from  which  I  could  see  no  art  specimens.  The 
only  factilty  or  guidance  I  have  relied  on  is  my 
own  critical  faculty,  so  that  I  wish  any  reader  to 
understand  that  this  book  only  represents  my  own 
OPINIONS,  and  that  I  have  not  the  slightest  inten- 
tion of  laying  down  any  laws  or  dogmas. 

An  analogous  case  to  studying  comparatively  the 
arts  of  different  races  occurs  when  anyone  studies 
their  implements,  weapons,  dress,  ornaments,  cus- 
toms, languages,  etc.,  and  draws  comparisons. 
Stone  implements  have  a  certain  similarity  the 
world  over.  Bone,  wood,  bronze,  and  iron  imple- 
ments differ  more  among  themselves  than  stone 
implements  do  among  themselves.  Works  of  art 
in  various  places  differ  still  more  than  do  implements. 
The  difference  between  implements  certainly  gives 
some  clue  as  to  their  makers,  and  the  differences 
between  works  of  art  should  lead  to  still  greater 
knowledge  of  the  races  the  artists  belong  to.  Com- 
parative philology,  comparative  anatomy  and  com- 
parative archeology  have  become  special  sciences 
and  have  shed  much  light  on  ethnology,  and  it  seems 
to  me  that  another  special  science  should  develop 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

under  the  name  of  comparative  art  with  the  likeli- 
hood of  proving  also  a  great  aid  to  knowledge. 

A  difficulty  about  the  study- of  comparative  art 
is  that  of  seeing  a  sufficient  number  of  specimens, 
and  it  would  be  unsafe  to  judge  of  the  art  of  any 
tribe,  such  for  instance  as  the  Zunis,  from  one  or 
two  specimens.  Another  difficulty  consists  in  the 
lack  of  certainty  anyone,  not  a  specialist  in  a 
locality,  must  always  be  under  as  to  whether  the 
specimens  he  may  see  are  genuine,  representative, 
and  whether  they  really  come  from  the  place  and 
date  from  the  time  assigned  to  them.  The  only 
thing  to  do  is  to  form  the  best  temporary  opinion 
one  can,  and  be  ready  to  alter  it  if  fresh  data 
turn  up. 

The  critical  faculty  about  art  every  educated  per- 
son possesses,  or  thinks  he  possesses,  to  a  greater 
or  less  degree.  The  average  educated  person  cer- 
tainly could  probably  learn  to  know  the  difference 
between  a  Giotto  and  a  Turner,  but  there  are  plenty 
of  experts  who  can  tell  with  something  like  certainty 
the  work  of  any  well  known  painter.  They  do  so  from 
the  quality  or  style  of  the  painting,  which  varies 
with  every  art  worker.  Quality  or  style  is  inde- 
finable in  words,  and  yet  experts  can  often  recognize 
by  a  mere  glance  at  a  picture,  who  it  was  painted  it. 
And  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  by  applying  what 
ability  I  possess  of  this  kind  to  a  study  and  a  com- 
parison of  the  arts  of  many  races,  I  might  perhaps 


8,  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

obtain  results  in  pointing  out  resemblances  and, 
differences  between  those  arts,  even  if  it  were  im- 
possible to  express  positively  in  words,  wherein 
those  resemblances  and  differences  lay. 

And  if  there  are  resemblances  and  differences 
betweeen  various  arts,  it  is  a  fair  inference  that 
there  are  also  resemblances  and  differences  between 
their  makers.  The  art  of  Mexico,  and  the  art  of 
France,  for  instance,  each  has  its  own  characteristics, 
proceeding  from  the  temper  and  morale,  and  envi- 
ronment and  other  characteristics  of  each  race. 
And  we  know  the  peoples  of  Mexico  are  by  no  means 
the  same  as  the  peoples  of  France.  The  art  of  old 
Rome  and  the  art  of  modern  France,  on  the  con- 
trary, are  distinctly  similar,  and  we  know  that  the 
peoples  of  France  are  to  a  certain  extent  descendants 
from  the  peoples  of  old  Rome.  In  fact,  it  is  a  toler- 
ably safe  inference  that  when  arts  are  similar,  so 
are  their  makers;  when  arts  are  different,  so  also 
are  their  makers. 

It  seems  to  me  therefore,  as  if  thru  a  study  of 
art,  a  good  deal  might  be  found  out  about  the  rela- 
tionships and  the  ancestors  of  mankind.  And  the 
problem  which  to  me  is  of  particular  interest,  is 
whether  all  men  evolved  from  one  common  ancestor 
in  some  definite  locality,  spreading  thence  all  over 
the  earth,  or  whether  men  evolved  from  different 
ancestors  in  different  localities.  Many  persons  hold 
that  the  human  races  all  come  from  one  stock; 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

others  believe  there  are  five  races,  a  white,  a  yellow, 
a  red,  a  brown,  and  a  black;  some  think  that  there 
are  fotir  races,  a  white,  a  yellow,  a  red,  and  a  black; 
while  still  others  believe  that  there  are  three  main 
types:  a  white  or  brown  type,  Ejiropeans,  Hindus, 
Semites,  etc.,  with  hairy  face  and  body,  long  fine 
hair  on  head,  and  straight,  well  developed  nose; 
a  yellow  type,  Mongolians,  Malays,  Polynesians, 
Amerinds,  with  narrow  eyes,  high  cheek  bones,  nar- 
row flattened  nose,  little  hair  on  face  and  body  and 
long  coarse  hair  on  head;  a  dark  yellow  or  black 
type,  Africans  and  Australasians,  with  flat,  bridge - 
less,  wide-winged  nose,  high  cheek  bones,  head 
and  body  hair  closely  curled  and  woolly. 

The  sciences  of  geology,  paleontology  and  com- 
parative anatomy  all  tend  to  show  that  the  various 
races  of  men  are  related  to  altho  not  descended  from 
the  ape.  The  evidence  makes  it  almost  certain 
that  the  earliest  types  of  life  on  the  planet  were  of 
a  low  order,  and  that  with  the  successive  geological 
epochs  higher  types  appeared.  Among  these  later 
ones  a  number  of  fossil  apes  have  been  found,  the  first 
about  1836,  and  the  last,  the  pithecanthropus  erectus, 
in  1893,  and  these  establish,  with  something  more 
than  a  mere  possibility,  the  phylogenetic  connection 
of  the  primates,  of  the  lemurs,  apes  and  men.  Com- 
parative anatomy  also  seems  to  be  all  on  the  side  of 
evolution  and  goes  far  to  prove  that  the  structure 
and  composition  of  man  and  the  apes  are  identical. 


10  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

But  there  is  one  point  on  which  comparative 
anatomy  and  paleontology  are  silent  and  that  is 
about  the  question,  always  a  stumbling  block  in 
geology,  of  time.  No  one  can  say  how  long  it  took 
to  evolve  man,  even  if  we  accept  the  series  of  inter- 
mediate paleontological  steps  as  complete.  And  the 
strongest  evidence  of  all  bearing  on  this  question  of 
time  seems  to  me  to  be  what  early  men  left  in  the 
form  of  art.  For  however  much  we  may  believe  in 
evolution,  the  remains  we  have  establish  beyond  all 
cavil  that  thousands  of  years  ago  men,  endowed 
with  great  art  faculties,  lived  in  Central  Europe. 
The  direct  evidence,  therefore,  proves  that  some  of 
them  were  intellectual  men.  It  is  certainly  a  curious 
fact  that  almost  as  far  back  as  we  can  go  in  the  his- 
tory of  man,  we  find  such  good  art  as  is  that  of  the 
Pleistokenes,  and  it  leads  one  to  think  either  that 
they  were  of  much  later  date  than  seems  possible, 
or  that  the  time  occupied  in  perfecting  man  must 
have  been  an  enormous  one.  Indeed,  taken  by 
itself,  it  points  toward  the  conclusion  that  man  is 
a  direct  creation  and  not  a  product  of  evolution. 

This  idea  of  comparing  the  various  fine  arts 
of  the  world  grew  gradually  with  me.  It  started 
some  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago,  with  collecting 
a  small  number  of  Japanese  paintings  and  then 
making  a  study  of  Japanese  art  ;  with  several  visits 
to  the  Musee  de  Saint  Germain  to  see  the  Pleis- 
tokene  remains  ;  with  receiving  some  Eskimo  stat- 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

uettes  from  Dr.  Vincent  ;  and  with  a  perusal  of 
Professor  Boyd  Dawkins'  Cave  Hunting,  in  connec- 
tion with  my  explorations  in  glaci^res.  One  thing 
led  to  another,  and  the  subject  evolved  slowly, 
until  it  became  clear  to  me  that  there  was  a  big, 
neglected  field  in  the  fine  arts  of  the  non-White 
races,  and  one  which  might  be  of  great  value  to 
ethnology. 

Perhaps  I  should  apologize  for  using  "  I  "  so 
frequently  in  this  monograph:  but  it  seems  to  me 
that  it  makes  a  book  less  formal  if  the  personal 
"  I  "  is  employed  instead  of  the  impersonal  "  the 
writer"  or  "the  author."  The  metric  system  and 
some  simplified  spelling  are  also  used :  for  it  seems 
to  me  that  scientists  are  in  duty  bound  to  throw 
their  influence  to  all  such  good  things  as  the  pro- 
tection of  the  birds,  forestry,  a  system  of  weights 
and  measures,  and  fonetik  spelHng  of  the  Ameri- 
can language.  Fonetik  spelling  will  evolve  grad- 
ually, altho  the  process  will  not  be  carried  thru  in 
our  generation.  Some  parts  of  this  work  also  are 
much  more  developed  than  others,  and  it  is,  of 
course,  an  artistic  mistake  not  to  have  harmony 
and  balance  in  a  work  of  the  pen,  as  much  as 
in  a  work  of  the  brush.  The  elaboration  of  cer- 
tain chapters,  such  for  instance  as  that  on  the 
art  of  the  Chinese  and  the  Japanese,  comes  because 
I  know  the  arts  of  certain  races  much  better 
than  that  of  others.     Moreover,  I  question  whether 


12  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

anyone  could  really  know  such  a  vast  subject  as 
the  fine  arts  of  all  mankind.  My  hope  in  writing 
this  book  is  that  it  may  have  a  certain  value  by 
bringing  before  ethnologists  something  a  little  new, 
namely,  a  comparison  of  the  esthetic  works  and 
faculties  of  many  races. ^ 

*  Thomas  H.  Huxley:  Evidence  as  to  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  1863. 

John  D.  Baldwin:   Ancient  America,  New  York,  1872. 

William  Henry  Flower:   Fashion  in  Deformity,  1881. 

Rev.  H.  N.  Hutchinson:  Prehistoric  Man  and  Beast,  1896. 

C.  F,  Keary:   The  Dawn  of  History,  New  York,  1898. 

J.  Deniker:   The  Races  of  Man,  1900. 

Charles  Morris:   Man  and  his  Ancestor,  1901. 

Alfred  C.  Haddon:    The  Study  of  Man,  1898. 

Edwin  Swift  Balch:  "Savage  and  Civilized  Dress,"  The  Journal  of 
the  Franklin  Institute,  Vol.  CLVII,  May  1904,  pages  321-332. 

Brand er  Matthews  :  "  How  can  we  better  our  spelling  :"  Mun- 
sey's  Magazine,  June,  1906. 

The  photographs  from  the  collections  in  the  British  Museum, 
published  by  W.  A.  Mansell  &  Co.,  beginning  1872,  are  the  most 
readily  accessible  illustrations  of  many  of  the  arts  mentioned  in 
this  book. 


PART  II. 
TECHNICAL  POINTS  IN  ART. 

Criticism.  Technic.  Art  and  Nature.  Synthesis  and  Analysis. 
Decoration.  Decorative  Art.  Spots  op  Color.  Light. 
Color.  Drawing  and  Line.  Perspective.  Values.  Aerial 
Perspective.  Subject  and  Motive.  Effect.  Plastic  Idea. 
Action  and  Motion.  Memory  and  Imagination.  Quality, 
Style,  Personality.  Conventionality.  Training.  Photog- 
raphy. 

As  this  monograph  is  intended  for  scientists,  and 
as  these  have  not  as  a  rule  had  an  art  training,  it 
seems  well  to  explain  briefly  a  few  technical  points 
in  art,  so  that  the  scientific  reader  may  know  in 
what  sense  I  use  certain  art  terms. 
Criticism. 

Art  criticism  is  an  intrinsically  difficult  matter. 
The  word  criticism  itself  unfortunately  has  come  to 
mean  an  adverse  judgment,  because  it  is  so  much 
easier  to  pick  out  flaws  than  to  find  good  qualities 
that  most  critics  pick  out  flaws.  Instead  of  that, 
criticism  should  be  an  intelligent  appreciation  of 
art,  and  an  attempt  to  point  out  the  good  as  well  as 
the  bad  points.  This  is  especially  necessary  when 
studying  the  works  of  other  races  than  our  own,  and 
a  critic  should  always  remember  that  the  fact  that 
works  of  art  are  different  from  those  he  is  used  to, 
does  not  necessarily  condemn  them  at  once  as  bad. 


14  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

Artists  are  usually  poor  critics,  because  they 
are  too  much  swayed  by  their  emotions,  and  because 
often  they  have  too  limited  a  knowledge  of  the 
arts  in  general.  They  are  apt  to  sneer  at  critics 
and,  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  any  good  criti- 
cism is  a  work  of  literary  art  implying  knowledge, 
often  say  that  the  poorest  work  of  art  is  better 
than  the  best  qriticism.  Connoisseurs,  men  who  spend 
much  time  in  examining  pictures  and  sometimes 
much  money  in  buying  them,  are  also  often  uncer- 
tain critics,  because  of  their  lack  of  technical  training. 

The  combination  of  faculties,  apparently,  which  is 
necessary  for  a  critic,  is  that  he  should  be  both  an 
artist  and  a  connoisseur,  and  in  fact,  the  only  critics 
who  have  ever  written  valuable  art  criticisms  are 
men  who  have  had  a  thoro  practical  training, 
so  as  to  know  every  technical  point,  and  who  have 
also  made  an  extensive  and  thoro  study  of  the 
works  of  a  great  many  artists.  Besides  this  a  certain 
amount  of  literary  ability  is  imperative.  So  difficult, 
however,  is  art  criticism,  that  great  critics  of  the 
graphic  arts  can  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand. 
I  know  myself  of  only  two :  Philip  Gilbert  Hamerton 
and  Eugene  Fromentin;  both  artists,  but  also  both 
men  of  wide  general  culture. 

Technic. 

The  word  technic  is  one  which  constantly 
comes  to  the  fore.     A  good  synonym  for  it  would  be 


TECHNICAL    POINTS    IN    ART.  15 

*  mechanical  performance.  That  is,  technic  refers 
to  the  manner  in  which  a  piece  of  art  is  carried  out. 
Drawing,  form,  action,  values,  color,  perspective, 
are  some  of  the  points  which  would  come  under  the 
all  covering  term,  technic.^ 

Art  and  Nature. 

Art  is  a  world  of  its  own,  the  product  of  human 
thought  and  emotion.  It  is  based  on  nature,  but  it 
is  separate  from  nature.  Some  art  is  close  to  na- 
ture, while  some  is  far  away  from  it.  Either  kind 
may  be  good  art  or  bad  art,  according  to  the  ability 
of  the  artist.  In  either  case  also  art  may  seem 
good  or  bad  to  the  onlooker  according  to  his  tem- 
perament and  intelligence.  These  statements  apply 
to  the  literary  as  well  as  to  the  graphic  arts.  Such 
a  work  as  Newcomb's  Astronomy  is  scientifically 
true,  and  yet  good  literary  art,  and  there  are  a 
million  or  so  of  stupid  and  imnatural  novels  which 
many  would  dignify  by  calling  them  literature.  In 
all  criticism  of  art,  therefore,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  while  art  may  be  true,  it  has  also  the 
right  of  being  absolute  fiction.  There  are,  in  fact, 
no  imiversal  rules  which  can  be  laid  down  either 

'The  proper  technic  or  method  of  painting  in  oils,  so  that  a  pic- 
ture should  be  sound  and  imp>erishable,  was  perhaps  best  explained 
by  Vibert,  in  his  capital  book  :  La  science  de  la  peinture.  Altho 
speaking  principally  of  the  permanency  of  art  materials,  yet  Vibert 
did  not  know  enough  about  book  making  to  prevent  his  work  from 
being  printed  on  wood  pvilp  paper,  so  that  the  original  edition  is 
already  dropping  to  pieces  :  a  case  of  bad  technic. 


16  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

for  the  production  of  works  of  art  or  for  its  criti- 
cism, because  the  individual  mind  of  every  person, 
whether  artist  or  layman,  is  such  a  varying  entity. 
In  my  opinion,  the  best  explanation  of  the  differ- 
ence between  art  and  nature  was  made  by  Philip 
Gilbert  Hamerton,  in  what  I  consider  the  greatest 
of  art  books:   The  Life  of  Turner. 

Synthesis  and  Analysis. 

All  art  work  involves  synthesis  and  analysis. 
Synthesis  means  the  subordination  of  a  part  to  the 
whole:  analysis  means  the  elaboration  of  detail. 
Synthesis  is  more  important  than  analysis  because 
it  is  necessary  to  get  the  masses,  the  great  features, 
before  getting  the  smaller  bits.  It  is,  for  instance, 
necessary  to  get  the  proportion,  the  swing,  the  action, 
the  center  of  gravity  of  a  statue  properly  placed 
before  getting  the  shape  of  the  nose  or  of  the  ear. 
Analysis,  however,  is  also  necessary,  for  without  a 
certain  elaboration  of  details,  works  of  art  remain 
too  crude,  too  sloppy  or  too  hard  to  be  of  genuine 
value.  But  while  detail  is  indispensable,  detail 
must  always  be  subordinated  to  the  whole.  As  a  good 
painter  would  say,  a  well  painted  picture  hangs 
together  and  carries  across  the  room;  but  at  the 
same  time,  when  it  is  examined  near  by,  it  reveals 
lots  of  careful  detail  which  at  a  distance  melts  into 
the  whole. 

The  completest  synthetic  artist  of  the  world  prob- 


TECHNICAL    POINTS    IN    ART.  17 

ably  was  Richard  Wagner.  He  is  the  only  man  who 
created  in  the  poetical,  in  the  musical,  and  in  the 
plastic  arts,  and  who  succeeded  in  fusing  in  his 
work  these  three  great  arts  into  one  synthetic  whole. 

Decoration. 

All  pictorial  art  is  a  decoration.  Whether  you 
paint  an  oil  picture  and  hang  it  on  a  wall,  or  whether 
you  paint  a  screen  in  water  colors  and  put  it  in  a 
temple,  or  whether  you  print  an  engraving  from  a 
block  and  bind  it  in  a  book,  is  all  the  same:  the 
work  is  a  decoration.  This  fact  is  usually  either  un- 
known or  forgotten.  As  a  rule,  people  get  muddled 
about  pictorial  art  being  a  decoration,  because  they 
imagine  in  some  rotmd  about  way  that  if  art  is  a 
decoration,  it  must  be  decorative  art.  A  somewhat 
similar  mistake  is  constantly  made  by  people  when 
they  first  hear  of  glacieres,  as,  owing  to  the  English 
term  "  ice-cave,"  and  its  resemblance  to  "  ice-cream," 
people  jump  at  the  conclusion  that  salt  in  some  mys- 
terious manner  must  have  something  to  do  with  the 
formation  of  imdergroimd  ice.^  In  both  cases,  it  is  a 
confusion  of  terms. 

Decorative  art. 

Decorative  art  is  a  term  properly  applied  to  cer- 
tain forms  of  graphic  art.  It  springs  originally  from 
pictorial  art.    Then  by  a  curious  process  of  retro- 

'  Edwin  Swift  Balch:  Glacieres  or  Freezing  Caverns,  Philadelphia, 
Allen,  Lane  &  Scott,  1900. 


18  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

gression,  the  esthetic  and  artistic  feeHngs  of  many 
artists  become  crystalHzed,  and  their  attempts  at 
pictorial  art  become  fixed  and  conventionaHzed 
and  drift  gradually  far  away  from  nature  into  set 
patterns.* 

Among  painters  the  word  ' '  decorative  ' '  usually 
implies  a  condemnation.  The  term  is  not  commonly 
applied  to  any  art  work  supposed  to  be  of  a  high  type, 
such  as  Notre  Dame  de  Paris,  or  the  Venus  of 
Milo,  or  the  Syndics,  nor  is  it  employed  to  de- 
scribe a  handsome  woman,  but  it  is  apt  to  be  used 
in  derogation  of  fine  color  or  brilliant  colors  by 
persons  who  do  not  feel  color,  or  by  painters  who 
are  imable  to  produce  fine  color  themselves.  I  have 
heard  painters  speak  contemptuously  of  plein-air 
paintings  and  of  Chinese  and  Japanese  art  as  deco- 
rative, but  what  they  really  meant  to  say  was,  not 
that  these  arts  were  decorative  art,  but  that  they 
did  not  like  them. 

Spots  of  color. 

[  The  fundamental  fact  in  pictorial  art  is  that  it 
consists  of  spots  of  pigment,  whether  black  or  col- 
ored, on  a  flat  plane.  A  piece  of  canvas,  silk  or 
paper  with  paint  upon  it,  remains  a  piece  of  canvas 
with  paint  put  upon  it,  and  with  all  the  paint  upon 
the  same  plane,  no  matter  how  much  people  may 

^Professor  Alfred  C.  Haddon,  Dr.  P.  Ehrenreich,  Professor  Karl 
von  der  Steinen  and  others  have  brought  out  this  fact.  See  Alfred 
C.  Haddon,  Evolution  in  Art,  1895. 


TECHNICAL    POINTS   IN    ART.  19 

delude  themselves  into  believing  that  the  said  piece 
of  canvas  is  furnished  with  distance,  atmosphere, 
perspective,  light  and  shade,  etc.  All  other  facts 
connected  with  painting  are  secondary  to  the  fact 
that  it  consists  of  spots  of  color  on  a  flat  plane,  and 
in  some  respects  these  secondary  facts  are  nothing 
but  pictorial  conventionalities,  which  from  long 
habit,  people  deceive  themselves  into  accepting  as 
truths. 

It  seems  as  if  the  art  instinct  of  the  Chinese  and 
the  Japanese  had  led  them  to  discern  that  the  one 
underlying  technical  point  in  a  picture  is  that  it 
consists  of  spots  of  color  on  a  flat  plane,  and  they 
apparently  as  a  rule  try,  altho  not  always  suc- 
cessfully, to  make  the  spots  of  color  agreeable  to 
the  eye.  The  Europeans,  on  the  contrary,  often 
appear  not  to  tmderstand,  or  else  they  forget,  that  a 
painting  consists  of  spots  of  color  on  a  flat  plane, 
and  in  tens  of  thousands  of  pictures  the  artist 
evidently  never  thought  of  making  the  spots  of 
color  "a  thing  of  beauty"  and  "a  joy  forever," 
and  the  one  absolute,  fimdamental  truth  that  the 
materials  force  on  the  man  is  lost  sight  of,  or  is 
treated  with  contempt  as  being  decorative. 

The  spots  of  color,  it  must  be  stated,  do  not  refer 
to  daubs  or  streaks  of  paint,  to  what  is  sometimes 
called  pointing  or  confetti  or  serpentine  work.  It 
refers  to  the  way  the  broad  masses  of  red,  blue, 
green  and  yellow  or  of  black  and  white  are  laid  in; 


20  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

whether  there  is  harmony  and  balance  between  them 
in  such  a  way  as  to  please  the  onlooker.  Some  of 
the  old  masters,  Titian,  Memling,  Giorgione,  for  in- 
stance, may  be  cited  as  instances  of  men  who  under- 
stood the  importance  of  making  their  spots  of  color 
into  a  balanced  harmony. 

Light. 

Light  is  always  the  first  and  most  vital  point  in 
any  picture.  It  is,  curiously  enough,  by  no  means 
always  known,  or  else  it  is  ignored,  that  all  details 
in  any  scene  are  subordinate  to  light.  If  a  person 
shuts  his  eyes  tight,  and  then  opens  them  slowly, 
he  becomes  cognizant  of  light  long  before  he  sees 
any  detail.  In  fact,  if  a  person  with  sensitive  eyes 
revolves  slowly,  with  his  eyes  shut,  before  an  open 
window  through  which  sunlight  is  streaming,  he 
will  be  aware  of  when  he  is  facing  the  room  and 
when  he  is  facing  the  window.  That  is,  a  person 
with  closed  eyelids  may  be  conscious  of  light  when 
he  is  imconscious  of  any  details  or  color. 

As  far  as  I  know,  the  attempt  to  paint  white  light 
is  a  recent  discovery  of  the  modem  Europeans. 
No  Greek,  or  Roman,  or  Assyrian,  or  Mexican,  or  any 
non- White  artists  have  apparently  ever  tried  to  do 
anything  like  it,  or  indeed  even  to  have  had  the  faint- 
est glimmer  of  the  problem.  The  Chinese  and  Jap- 
anese alone  show  some  attempts  in  this  direction,  but 
even  these  are  far  removed  from  some  modem  Eu- 


TECHNICAL    POINTS    IN    ART.  21 

ropeans.  The  great  Turner  in  much  of  his  later  work 
distinctly  solved  the  problem,  perhaps  better  than 
anyone  else,  of  painting  light,  and  Rembrandt  in 
some  of  his  works,  and  the  Nightwatch  is  the  best 
example,  also  seems  to  have  thought  more  of  the 
light  than  of  his  figures.  Certain  painters  of  our 
generation  also,  Edouard  Manet,  Claude  Monet,  and 
Miss  Cassatt  among  them,  directed  their  main  efforts 
to  trying  to  paint  a  bit  of  nature  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  suggest  light,  and  they  accomplished  it,  with 
one  or  two  former  sporadic  exceptions,  more  effect- 
ually than  any  artists  preceding  them.  Various  names 
have  been  coined  to  describe  these  painters  of  light 
and  sunshine  among  which  the  best  are  luminarist 
and  plein-airist  and  the  least  accurate,  indeed  almost 
idiotic,  and  perhaps  for  this  reason  most  widely 
used,  is  "impressionist." 

The  problem  and  its  explanation  are  really  a 
simple  matter.  It  is,  of  course,  well  known  that 
a  ray  of  sunlight  which  passes  thru  drops  of 
misty  water  or  thru  a  glass  prism,  becomes  de- 
composed into  the  rainbow  or  spectrum.  That  is, 
the  rainbow  or  spectrum  is  the  equivalent  in  colors 
of  a  ray  of  white  sunshine.  But  painters  cannot,  by 
leaving  a  piece  of  bare  white  canvas,  reproduce  the 
effect  of  sunlight  on  landscape,  as  this  would  imply 
leaving  out  all  the  forms  and  local  colors.  They  are 
obliged,  therefore,  to  resort  to  colors  to  produce 
their  effects,  and  since  they  cannot  imitate  white 


22  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

sunlight,  the  only  alternative  is  to  decompose  it  and 
this  leads  inevitably  to  an  attempt  to  paint  the 
spectrum.  It  is  in  fact,  I  think,  quite  correct  to 
say  that  the  spectrum  is  really  the  center  and  the 
best  of  all  luminarist  pictures,  and  that  luminarist 
painting  is  really  nothing  but  an  attempt  to  convey 
to  the  retina,  thru  pigments,  something  equivalent 
to  the  sensation  of  a  ray  of  white  light,  cast  on  the 
various  accidental  forms,  such  as  trees  and  build- 
ings, which  constitute  the  landscape,  and  the  only 
way  to  produce  such  a  sensation  is  to  clothe  the 
accidental  forms  in    the  colors   of   the   spectrimi. 

For  example,  suppose  we  take  a  clean  white 
canvas,  and  a  palette  with  cobalt,  emeraude  green, 
white,  light  cadmium  yellow,  and  vermilion;  then 
work  in  the  forms  of  a  landscape  with  these  colors, 
toning  the  blue,  green,  yellow,  and  red,  with  the 
white,  but  never  mixing  the  blue,  green,  yellow,  and 
red.  We  will  obtain  a  landscape  probably  garish  in 
effect,  inaccurate  in  its  local  colors,  but  one  which  at 
least  will  produce  something  like  the  sensation  of 
sunlight.  This  would  be  then  not  so  much  an 
attempt  to  imitate  the  forms  or  the  local  colors  of 
nature  as  to  suggest  simlight. 

It  is  doubtful  how  much  the  luminarist  painters 
themselves  imderstand  the  problem  before  them, 
but  it  is  certainly  not  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  in 
bringing,  in  many  cases  certainly  unconscious  of 
the  scientific  fact,  white  light  decomposed  into  the 


TECHNICAL    POINTS    IN    ART.  23 

prismatic  colors  into  art,  the  luminarists  or  plein- 
airists  have  made  a  distinct  scientific  and  a  per- 
manent artistic  conquest.  Can  it  be  that  the 
modem  scientific  spirit  of  the  White  race,  which 
extends  into  all  manner  of  labor,  has  had  its  effect 
on  art  and  has  been  a  cause  of  evolving  the  use  of 
the  spectrum,  which  after  all  is  really  a  scientific 
fact,  into  the  fine  artsi^ 

Color. 

About  color  in  art,  it  is  never  worth  while  argu- 
ing. It  is  unusual  for  two  temperaments  to  seem 
to  feel  color  alike :  what  is  meat  to  one  is  often  poi- 
son to  another.  Moreover  it  is  always  difficult  to 
speak  of  color,  for  it  may  be  taken  as  a  rule,  that 
what  may  be  known  thru  language  of  a  painting 
is  its  point  of  least  power,  and  if  one  may  be  told 
all,  it  is  a  literary,  not  a  graphic  production.  It  is 
the  pectiliar  function  of  color  to  carry  a  painting 
or  a  colored  print  to  its  highest  power  as  a  work 
of  pictorial  art,  separate  from  other  arts  and  gain- 
ing nothing  from  them.  Here  painting  goes  alone 
and  nothing  follows  her.  If  we  cannot  behold  her, 
we  cannot  guess,  and  no  one  can  tell  us  what  she  is. 

*  The  spectrum  is  always  visible,  often  only  faintly,  in  a  clear 
sky.  Towards  the  sun  or  svinset  are  the  yellows  and  oranges,  and 
further  away  in  the  blue  the  greens  and  purples.  The  color  of 
the  sky  is  the  best  local  indication  of  the  weather.  If  the  blue 
is  very  pure,  it  is  a  sign  of  clear  weather.  If  there  is  much 
yellow  ochre  near  the  horizon,  especially  when  tinged  with  brown 
madder  or  garance  foncie,  it  is  an  almost  stire  sign  of  rain. 


24  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

Drawing  and  line. 

Drawing  is  an  attempt  to  represent,  by  means  of 
lines,  spots,  and  washes,  natural  objects  on  some 
plane  surface.  An  immature  mind,  child  or  savage, 
generally  begins  by  attempting  to  draw  what  is 
called  the  outline,  that  is  the  contours  of  the  objects. 
Later  he  learns  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  out- 
line in  nature,  which  shows  to  the  eye  nothing  but 
more  or  less  big  or  minute  spaces  of  color.  After 
that  he  uses  outline  somewhat,  but  as  a  means  to  an 
end,  and  he  draws  also  by  the  help  of  spots  and 
masses  of  darks  and  lights,  and  of  color  and  colors. 
Line  in  art  is  something  altogether  apart  from  out- 
line. If  a  river,  a  road  and  a  fence  are  represented 
in  a  picture  they  each  form  a  line,  altho  their 
several  outlines  may  be  entirely  hazy  and  indeter- 
minate. Lines  in  art  are  one  of  its  most  vital 
points,  but  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  line  from 
outline. 

According  to  the  use  of  lines  in  a  picture,  different 
feelings  can  be  produced.  If,  for  instance,  a 
river,  a  road,  and  a  fence  all  start  from  the  fore- 
groiind  and  lead  off  into  the  background  a  feeling 
of  distance  and  space  is  produced;  mountains 
look  big,  in  fact  it  is  only  by  some  such  artifice 
or  ficelle  that  mountains  can  be  made  to  look  big. 
Run  that  same  river  and  fence  and  road  across  the 
picture  from  side  to  side;  immediately  the  mind 
concentrates   on   the   foreground.     Distance   is   no 


TECHNICAL   POINTS   IN   ART.  25 

longer  suggested;  a  mountain  painted  precise^  like 
the  other  one  looks  two  or  three  thousand  meters 
less  in  height,  in  fact,  by  the  use  of  the  lines  in 
the  foreground,  one  can  raise  a  mountain  to  enor- 
mous heights,  or  dwarf  it  to  a  mere  hill. 

Perspective. 

In  connection  with  drawing  we  find,  of  course, 
perspective,  which  may  be  defined  as  the  science  of 
representing  objects  on  a  plane  in  such  a  way  that 
the  eye  sees  them  in  the  same  position  and  of  the 
same  size  as  they  appear  in  nature.  Perspective 
is  mechanical  and  geometrical  rather  than  artistic, 
and  barring  one  or  two  simple  rules,  such  as  "twice 
the  distance,  half  the  size,"  is  principally  useful  in 
drawings  of  buildings  and  complicated  machinery. 
There  are  professional  perspecteurs  in  France,  who 
will,  for  a  consideration,  put  a  pictiire  into  perspec- 
tive for  you,  and  some  painters,  of  rooms  and 
buildings  principally,  sometimes  have  this  done. 
In  free  hand  drawings  by  artists,  however,  either  of 
figures  or  landscapes,  it  is  but  seldom  resorted  to, 
as  an  accurate  eye  and  ability  to  draw  is  all  that  is 
necessary  to  get  perspective  correct  enough  for  art 
purposes.^ 

'  The  great  critic,  Hamerton,  Life  of  Turner,  tells  us  exactly  how 
a  real  painter  works  :  "  The  real  truth  is  that  when  he  [Turner]  came 
to  practice  he  discarded  theory  altogether  and  used  a  perspective  of  his 
own  in  a  wilful  manner,  infringing  the  mathematical  rules.  He  even 
maintained  in  his  own  laconic  way  the  necessity  of  such  deviations. 
G.  Barrett  had  once  drawn  a  temple  in  a  landscape  of  his  by  rule, 


26  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

Values. 

There  is  an  expression  in  the  language  of  artists 
which  sometimes  leads  to  great  question  and  much 
mistmderstanding,  namely,  values.  Next  to  draw- 
ing, values  are  the  theme  of  the  Paris  art  teacher's 
criticism,  whilst  of  color,  curiously  enough,  he  says 
hardly  a  word.  Roughly  speaking,  values  means 
the  quantity  of  light  or  dark,  from  absolute  white 
to  pure  black,  irrespective  of  color,  in  any  given  tone. 
Chiaroscuro,  or  light  and  shade,  is  nothing  but  a 
pleasant  arrangement  of  values. 

To  obtain  fairly  correct  values  necessitates  close 
observation  of  the  subject  in  a  particular  environ- 
ment, or  imder  an  effect  however  impalpable  of 
light  and  shade,  and  it  implies  also  that  the  whole  of 
the  picture  is  covered  by  the  paint.  Despite  the 
importance  of  values,  however,  yet  they  are  some- 
thing of  an  artistic  convention,  for  no  one  can  really 
realize  absolute  values,  since  the  scale  of  paint  does 
not  include  light. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  by  careful  attention  to  values, 
more  than  to  anything  else,  that  the  European 
reaches  his  deceptive  effects  in  imitating  nature, 
that  is,  it  is  thru  values  that  he  obtains  the 
illusions  which  are  sometimes  called  realism  or  what 

and  Turner  said:  '  You  will  never  do  it  that  way.'  His  own  cannot 
be  defined  without  illustrations  which  it  is  not  worth  while  for  such 
a  purpose  to  engrave,  but  it  may  be  said  with  perfect  truth  that  al- 
though possessing  accurate  knowledge,  he  preferred  taste  to  knowl- 
edge, and  knowingly,  refused  to  follow  science  wherever  his  artistic 
judgment  suggested  the  policy  of  deviation." 


TECHNICAL    POINTS   IN    ART.  27 

the   French   more   expressively   define  as  a  trompe 
VcbU. 

Aerial  Perspective. 

Aerial  perspective  refers  to  the  softening  of  colors 
and  lights  and  darks  by  distance,  and  is  really 
only  a  phase  of  values. 

Subject  and  motive. 

Subject,  as  we  have  anglicized  the  French 
sujet,  is  any  object  or  scene  which  you  draw, 
paint  or  sculpt.  Anything  in  the  natural  world  is  a 
subject.  When  a  painter  is  moved  by  any  subject, 
then  it  becomes  a  motive  to  him.  VoUon,  for  in- 
stance, took  once  for  a  subject  a  tobacco  jar,  a  pipe 
and  an  ash  dish,  and  they  were  a  motive  to  him,  for 
out  of  them  he  made  a  charming  picture.  A  subject 
can  also  be  imagined  or  made  up,  as  is  done  in  his- 
torical and  genre  pictures.  Such  a  painting,  for 
instance,  as  Repine's  "  Ivan  the  Terrible's  murder 
of  his  only  son",  now  in  the  Tretiakoff  gallery  at 
Moscow,  is  an  example  of  a  subject,  imagined  by 
the  artist,  which  moved  him  so  deeply,  that  he 
made  of  it  one  of  the  most  dramatic  of  all  figure 
pictures. 

Effect.  ~' 

Everything  out  of  doors  in  the  world  of  nature  is 

a  subject,  and  equally  so  only  becomes   a  motive 

when  a  painter  is  moved  by  it.     This,  however,  only 


28  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

happens  when  there  is  an  effect.  The  position  and 
play  of  Hght,  the  time  of  day,  the  state  of  the  weather, 
and  many  other  factors,  as  well  as  the  material  ob- 
jects themselves,  combine  to  make  an  effect,  and  it 
is  when  an  effect  becomes  a  motive  to  a  landscapist 
that  he  is  able  to  do  his  best  work.  A  landscape 
subject,  seen  under  some  advantageous  effect  of 
light  and  shade  and  color,  may  be  fine  and  artistic, 
when  under  some  other  circumstances,  it  may  be 
commonplace  and  uninteresting. 

Plastic  Idea. 

Idee  plastique  is  a  French  term,  which  con- 
veys certain  ideas  for  which  there  is  no  other  ter- 
minology. It  means  the  sense  of  form  and  might 
be  anglicized  into  plastic  idea.  Plastic  idea 
refers  to  the  way  in  which  figures  are  conceived 
sculpturally,  in  their  proportions,  in  their  action, 
in  their  motions,  quite  apart  from  their  ostensible 
object.  No  one  knows  what  the  so-called  Venus  of 
Milo  represented ;  some  think  it  a  figure  of  Victory, 
others  a  figure  of  Venus,  others  something  else ;  what 
she  does  represent,  however,  is  not  of  the  slightest 
importance.  What  is  of  importance  is  her  plastic 
idea,  the  wonderful  sense  of  form,  which  places  her 
among  the  best  of  all  sculpture. 

Action  and  motion. 

Action  and  motion  are  not  synonymous  terms  in 
the  fine  arts.     Action  is  present  in  everything  de- 


TECHNICAL   POINTS    IN    ART.  29 

picted  in  sculpture  or  painting.  Motion  is  only- 
present  when  something  is  supposed  to  be  in  move- 
ment. A  tree,  a  rock,  a  house,  an  animal  or  a 
man  at  rest,  has  a  certain  position,  and  this  is  termed 
its  action.  But  if  this  tree  is  being  blown  by  the 
wind  or  if  the  animal  is  nmning  hard,  it  not  only 
has  its  action,  but  it  shows  a  movement,  and  this 
movement  is  its  motion. 

Memory  and  imagination. 

It  is  a  fallacy,  commonly  accepted  among  Euro- 
peans, that  all  sculpture,  drawing  and  painting 
must  be  done  while  looking  directly  at  nature. 
Many  painters  say  "Look  at  the  model:  don't 
work  from  chic.''  Chic  is  the  artistic  slang  word 
for  memory  or  imagination,  and  painting  from 
memory  or  imagination  is  generally  held  to  be 
all  wrong.  The  fact,  however,  is  just  the  oppo- 
site. The  greatest  painters  always  paint  largely 
from  memory  or  imagination.  They  either  make 
studies  until  they  know  their  subject,  or  they  look 
at  it  until  they  memorize  it,  or  they  invent. 
Fra  Angelico,  Leonardo,  Tintoretto,  Michael  Angelo, 
Bocklin,  Dore,  and  many  other  Europeans  all  painted 
more  or  less  from  memory  or  imagination.  Will- 
iam Morris  Hunt,  one  of  the  strongest  American 
painters  and  certainly  the  best  American  art  critic, 
always  practised  and  preached  painting  from  mem- 
ory.    I  have  seen  George  Inness  painting  some  of 


30  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

his  beautiful  landscapes  in  the  center  of  New  York 
city,  without  even  a  sketch  to  help  him.  The 
Chinese  and  Japanese  masters  all  paint  from  mem- 
ory and  imagination.  When  pictures  are  not  painted 
at  least  partially  from  memory  and  imagination, 
the  difference  of  method  is  usually  shown  in  the 
work;  the  figures  seem  petrified:  they  are  merely 
models  posing;  there  is  more  detail,  more  model- 
ling than  in  imaginative  work,  but  the  life  is  arrested. 
When  pictures  are  painted  to  some  extent  from 
memory  or  imagination,  while  there  is  usually  less 
detail  and  sometimes  incorrect  anatomy,  yet  there 
is  generally  life  and  action,  and  the  figures  are  sel- 
dom petrified  and  rarely  posing. 

Quality.     Style.     Personality. 

The  terms  quaHty  and  style  are  frequently  used 
in  connection  with  works  of  art.  It  may  be  sug- 
gested that  all  good  painting  has  quaHty,  and  that 
each  strong  individual  painter  has  style.  Quality 
is  found  in  all  good  painting  and  it  might  be  de- 
fined as  meaning  that  all  the  technical  processes 
are  thoroly  mastered  and  that  the  actual  busi- 
ness of  laying  the  paint  is  done  in  a  proper  way. 
As  Hamerton^  truly  says,  any  man  who  can  put 
quality  into  a  few  square  inches  of  canvas  we  may 
be  sure  has  studied  nature  for  years  and  years. 
Style    may  be   said   to   be   quality  individualized 

'  The  Graphic  Arts. 


TECHNICAL    POINTS    IN    ART  31 

and  to  be  practically  synonymous  with  personality. 
The  use  of  either  term  about  an  artist  means  that 
he  puts  enough  individuality  into  his  work  for  it  to 
be  recognized  as  its  maker's  at  a  glance.  We  say 
that  Rodin  or  Corot  or  de  Hooge  are  personal  be- 
cause to  a  trained  eye  the  authorship  of  their  work 
is  revealed  in  a  moment  without  a  signature.  This 
principle  applies  to  any  of  the  great  artists,  whether 
they  are  Greeks  or  Chinese  or  Japanese  or  of  any 
race.  Each  great  artist  has  his  own  personal  way 
of  working,  which  is  his  style,  and  if  one  gets  to 
know  it,  his  work  always  has  an  individuality  of  its 
own,  which  is  just  as  recognizable  as  a  man's  per- 
sonal appearance  or  his  handwriting. 

Conventionality. 

Works  of  art  are  often  spoken  of  as  being  con- 
ventional or  imconventional.  To  a  great  extent 
all  art  is  conventional,  that  is  to  say,  it  is  always 
more  or  less  similar  to  the  art  produced  at  the  same 
place  and  time.  No  artist  gets  entirely  away  from 
his  environment.  When  the  works  of  an  artist  are 
spoken  of  as  tmconventional  it  generally  means  that 
he  has  seen  and  done  something  a  little  different 
from  his  contemporaries.  The  working  of  the  prin- 
ciple is  that  in  all  arts  the  master  minds,  either  tired 
with  what  has  been  done  before  or  urged  on  by 
their  own  power,  do  something  fresh  and  branch 
off  into  some  unbeaten  track.     Then  come  their 


32  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

followers,  the  so-called  school,  who  follow  their 
leader  until  they  run  into  a  groove  and  become 
mannered  and  conventional,  when  some  other  origi- 
nal mind  always  breaks  away  in  some  new  direction. 
Look  at  the  followers  of  Perugino,  of  Delacroix, 
of  Fortuny,  to  see  how  this  principle  works  with 
us,  and  then  if  you  turn  to  the  great  Japanese,  to 
Sesshiu,  to  Korin,  to  Ukio  Matahei,  to  Okio,  you 
will  find  that  each  of  these  strong  men  brought 
something  new  into  art  and  broke  away  from  what 
time  had  crystallized,  and  that  in  turn  weaker  men 
imitated  them  and  developed  and  solidified  their 
peculiarities  and  their  imperfections  into  conven- 
tionalities. 

Training. 

When  we  find  art  with  a  certain  amount  of  qual- 
ity, it  is  safe  to  infer  that  it  shows  training  in  its 
makers.  Of  course  the  great  artists  go  beyond  all 
training,  but  when  the  general  level  of  art  in  any 
place  is  high,  it  implies  that  the  artists  had  an 
amount  of  training  which  could  only  have  come 
with  a  surrounding  civilization.  For  instance,  it 
is  a  matter  of  history  how  in  Italy  and  in  Flanders 
apprentices  in  studios  had  to  grind  the  colors  and 
prepare  the  canvas  and  that  these  apprentices  after- 
wards sometimes  rose  to  distinction  as  painters. 
In  the  same  way,  the  training  of  the  Japanese  has 
much  to  do  with  his  technical  ability.     For  years 


TECHNICAL   POINTS    IN   ART.  33 

he  is  trained,  first  in  copying  writing,  then  in  copy- 
ing works  of  art,  repeating  one  form  over  and  over 
again.  Small  Japanese  children  sit  together  copy- 
ing designs,  not  with  our  skimp  watercolor  boxes, 
but  with  great  saucers  of  color,  doing  the  same 
patterns  many  times,  and  this  continual  humble 
training  is  what  eventually  gives  them  their  power. 

Photography. 

Photography  is  something  radically  different  from 
drawing.  It  is  as  much  a  science  as  an  art.  It  can 
do  many  things  which  hand  made  art  cannot.  For 
accuracy  of  detail,  for  exactitude  of  any  scene,  for 
a  certain  kind  of  imitation,  miscalled  the  truth, 
painting  is  nowhere  near  photography.  If  imita- 
tive truth  were  the  only  basis  of  art,  art  would, 
after  these  fifty  years  of  photography,  be  as  dead 
as  an  Egyptian  Pharaoh.  But  art  is  not  necessa- 
rily the  truth;  art  is  the  expression,  the  outlet  of 
human  emotion;  art  is  the  child  of  the  artist's 
brain;  art  shows  his  selection,  his  power  of  com- 
position, his  individuality;  art  is  the  outcome  of 
thought.  Photography  is  the  work  of  a  camera; 
and  a  camera  has  no  brains.  Photography  is 
largely  a  mechanical  performance,  most  of  which 
can  be  done  in  a  shop.  The  actual  taking  of  the 
ordinary  photograph  requires  just  a  little  more 
ability  than  ringing  a  door  bell.  "  You  press  the 
button,  we  do  the  rest,"    is  the  advertisement   of 


34  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

the  Kodak  Company,  and  it  describes  accurately 
the  amoiint  of  thought  required  to  produce  an  illus- 
tration which  no  artist  could  possibly  do  by  hand. 
Any  imaginative  artist,  on  the  contrary,  can  make 
a  sketch  or  model  a  sculpture  which  no  photog- 
rapher could  possibly  originate  thru  his  camera. 
A  thoughtful  photographer,  however,  can  seek  out 
and  find  subjects  which  compose,  effects  of  light 
and  shade,  etc.,  so  that  some  of  the  qualities  of  art 
may  be  introduced  into  photographs,  and  thru 
the  use  of  their  wits,  and  by  various  manipulations 
and  alterations  of  negatives,  some  of  the  members 
of  the  curiously  named  "Photo  Secession"^  are 
producing  photographs  which  have  many  of  the 
artistic  qualities  of  modern  realistic  art:  in  their 
hands  the  camera  is  becoming  an  art  tool.  Photog- 
raphy is  simply  invaluable,  and  is  one  of  the 
most  important  inventions  ever  made  in  this  world, 
but  it  is  as  well  to  remember,  when  discussing  art, 
that  art  and  ordinary  photography  are  dissimilar 
things. 

*  C.  Howard  Conway,  "  The  Artist  of  the  Camera  "  :  Munsey's 
Magazine,  September,  1906. 


PART  III. 

THE  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISTRIBUTION 
OF  ART. 

^LEISTOKENE     ArT.  IEuROPEAN     PoLISHED     StONE     PERIOD     ArT. 

European  Bronze  Period  Art.,  Greek  Art.  Etruscan  Art. 
Roman  Art.  Byzantine  Art.  Flemish  and  Italian  Art. 
"SEgyptian  Art.  Arab  Art.  African  Art.  Zimbabwe  Art. 
Bushman  Art.  -^Kaldean  Art.  ^Assyrian  Art.  •  Phenician 
Art.  Persian  Art.  South  Asiatic  Art.  East  Asiatic  Art.(^ 
Ainu  Art.  East  Siberian  Art.  Australasian  Art.  Eskimo^ 
Art.  West  North  Amerind  Art.  East  North  Amerind  Art. 
Central  Amerind  Art.      East  South  Amerind  Art. 

Pleistokene  Art. 
It  is  imknown  when  man  first  walked  on  the  earth. 
We  may  guess  at  fifty  thousand  or  two  himdred  and 
fifty  thousand  years,  or  any  other  figure  we  may 
prefer,  all  that  is  certain  is  that  man  has  dwelt  for 
many  eons  on  this  planet.  It  is  possible  that  he 
dates  back  to  the  Tertiary,  for  some  rough  stones 
which  appear  to  be  implements,  and  which  are  possi- 
bly man's  handiwork,  have  been  fotmd  in  the  Eocene, 
and  hence  are  generally  called  eoliths.  Man  cer- 
tainly existed  during  the  entire  Pleistokene  or  Qua- 
ternary period,  for  chipped  stone  implements  are 
found  in  all  the  strata  of  that  epoch.  These  flint 
flakes  and  stone  implements  with  rough  surfaces  have 
been  discovered  in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  Australasia 
and  America,  in  some  cases  together  with  bones  of 
extinct  mammals,  such  as  the  mammoth,  the  rhi- 


36  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

noceros  tichorinus  and  the  machairodus  and  they 
are  the  earUest  unquestioned  relics  of  man  known. 
These  rough  stone  implements  are  generally  called 
paleoliths,  that  is  ancient  stones,  but  the  French  term 
pierre  eclaUe,  that  is  split  stone  or  chipped  stone,  is 
more  accurate  and  descriptive. 

The  roughest  of  these  stone  implements  are  also 
the  earliest,  and  it  is  certain  that  chipped  stone  im- 
plements evolve  in  a  progressive  development. 
Nevertheless  in  the  case  of  very  rough  and  shapeless 
specimens,  and  a  good  many  such  are  exhibited  in 
museums,  it  seems  to  me  that  an  observer  should 
go  slow  in  pronouncing  them  man's  handiwork. 
For  instance,  three  so  called  eoliths  from  Thenay, 
Loir-et-Cher,^  and  some  eoliths  from  Kent,  Eng- 
land,^^  may  or  may  not  be  implements,  altho 
probably  they  are.  The  eoliths  from  Thenay  are 
better  than  those  from  Kent,  and  are  not  much 
rougher  than  some  of  the  exhibited  specimens  of  the 
earliest  Pleistokene  implements.  And  whilst  some 
of  the  early  Pleistokene  implements  show  a  great 
advance  on  eoliths  and  are  unmistakably  man's 
handiwork,  some  of  the  rougher  exhibited  speci- 
mens seem  to  me  extremely  doubtful. 

None  of  the  remains  nor  of  the  implements  which 
has  come  down  to  us  from  the  early  Pleistokene  men, 
however,  gives  us  a  clue  by  which  they  can  be  con- 

'  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.     From  Abb^  Bourgeois. 
*°  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.    From  B.  Harrison,  Esq. 


PLEISTOKENE    ART.  37 

nected  certainly  with  any  race  now  living  on  the 
earth,  and  all  we  can  say  positively  is  that  they  were 
hunters  and  fishermen.  Nothing  has  been  dis- 
covered as  yet  in  connection  with  the  earliest  Pleis- 
tokene  implements  which  could  in  any  way  be 
termed  art,  and  it  is  therefore  impossible  to  say 
whether  the  oldest  Pleistokene  men  had  any  art 
sense  or  any  ideas  of  ornamentation  or  adornment. 
With  the  later  Pleistokenes,  however,  art,  great  art, 
appears.  It  is  undoubtedly  correct  to  say  that  the 
later  Pleistokene  men  are  the  earliest  known  great 
artists.  For  in  the  caves  and  refuse  heaps  of  France, 
England,  Belgium,  Germany,  Switzerland  and  Spain, 
specimens  of  excellent  art  have  been  found  which 
are  surely  their  work.  They  unquestionably  had' 
the  power  of  observing  artistically  natural  objects 
and  of  recording  their  observations  by  sculpting  or 
incising  bone  or  ivory.  Their  art  is  naive,  realistic, 
accurately  characteristic  and  truly  it  may  be  called 
great. 

Relative  chronology,  depending  on  astronomical 
calculations  of  the  glacial  period,  the  depth  of  soil 
covering  the  specimens,  the  bones  of  extinct  mam- 
malia found  with  them,  etc.,  assigns  various  dates 
to  the  art  remains  of  the  Pleistokenes.  All  such  cal- 
culations, however,  seem  to  me  uncertain  and  some- 
what in  the  nature  of  guesses.  The  fact  that  a  frozen 
mammoth  was  found_in  the  region  of  the  Lena  river, 
whose  flesh  was  eaten  by  the  finders'  dogs,  shows 


38  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

that  the  mammoth  may  have  become  extinct  not 
so  very  long  ago.  The  depth  of  soil  is  also  an  uncer- 
tain proof,  since  accumulation  is  so  varied  and 
sometimes  so  rapid.  At  the  Saalburg,  for  instance, 
remains  of  Mithras  worship  were  found  in  1904,^^ 
buried  under  about  two  meters  of  soil ;  and  yet  those 
remains  surely  post  date  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era.  All  we  can  say  positively,  is  that 
Pleistokene  art  remains  date  back  a  long  time,  cer- 
tainly not  less  than  ten  thousand  years,  and  more 
probably  twenty-five  or  fifty  thousand  years. 

Many  Pleistokene  art  works,  mainly  from  caves  in 
the  Dordogne,  are  now  in  the  Musee  de  Saint  Ger- 
main near  Paris.  The  most  valuable  part  of  the 
collection  is  that  made  some  years  ago  by  Mons. 
Piette,  many  of  whose  finest  specimens  come  from 
Mas-d'Azil.  Mons.  Piette's  collection  was  all  shown 
to  me  in  1905  by  Mons.  B.  Charnpion,  assistant 
director  of  the  Musee.  He  stated  that  among  the 
works  of  art,  statuettes  came  in  the  lowest  strata; 
then  statuettes  and  bas-reliefs  in  the  middle  strata ; 
then  statuettes,  bas-reliefs  and  drawings  in  the  upper 
strata.  In  other  words,  an  untaught  man  first  sees 
things  artistically  in  the  round  and  not  on  a  flat 
plane. 

**  Edwin  Swift  Balch:  The  Saalburg  near  Hamburg  (extract  from 
Roman  and  Prehistoric  Remains  in  Central  Germany),  published  by 
the  German  Government  for  the  World's  Exhibition  at  Saint  Louis 
in  1904,  and  by  J.  G.  Steinhausser,  Homburg,  1904,  as  an  English 
guide  to  the  Saalburg. 


J 


PLEISTOKENE    ART.  39 

The  statuettes  are  exceedingly  interesting.  They 
are  always  most  uncompromisingly  nude.  Some 
three  or  fotir  of  the  earliest  statuettes  are  of  steatite, 
a  dark  greenish,  somewhat  transparent  stone.  They 
are  some  six  to  eight  centimeters  high,  and 
unlike  any  art  I  ever  saw.  In  several  cases  the 
belly  sticks  out  abnormally,  almost  in  the  form  of  a 
cube.  Mons.  Champion  said  that  some  archeolo- 
gists  had  argued  that  these  figures  must  represent 
some  imknown  form  of  man,  because  they  were  so 
misshapen,  but  he  thought  that  perhaps  they  were 
caricatures.  I  am  inclined  to  think,  however,  that 
the  true  explanation  is  that  in  time  of  famine  these 
people  ate  mud.  This  was  suggested  to  me  by  Dr. 
Charles  William  Fox  of  Philadelphia,  who  on  my  giv- 
ing him  an  account  of  these  statuettes,  said  that 
some  tribes  of  Amerinds,  men,  women  and  children, 
had  these  square,  protruding  bellies,  and  that  it  came 
from  their  eating  mud,  and  that  therefore  they  were 
sometimes  called  clay  eaters  or  mud  eaters.  One 
of  the  statuettes  of  women  is  strongly  steatypige  and 
this  would  suggest  negro  blood.  There  are  several 
ivory  statuettes.  These  are  better  done  and  larger 
than  the  steatite  statuettes.  A  couple  of  them  may 
have  been  twenty  or  twenty-five  centimeters  high, 
but  as  none  of  the  Pleistokene  statuettes  is  entire,  it 
is  impossible  to  tell  their  exact  dimensions.  One  of 
the  female  ivory  statuettes  has  the  protuberant 
mudeater  belly,  but  the  ivory  statuettes  have  much 


40  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

less  exaggerated  proportions  than  the  steatite  statu- 
ettes. 

There  are  three  small  Pleistokene  heads  in  Mons. 
Piette's  collection.  They  are  certainly  well  done. 
The  first  impression  is  that  they  are  Egyptian 
heads,  because  the  hair  is  long,  hanging  down  over 
the  neck.  The  type  of  the  face  also  suggests  rather 
a  European  than  a  Chinese,  and  certainly  it  is  not 
negroid.  The  heads  are  too  small,  however,  for 
any  certainty  as  to  the  human  type  represented. 

There  are  two  or  three  single  hands.  Curiously 
enough,  the  thumb  is  not  clearly  represented  in 
these,  and  my  brother,  Mr.  Thomas  Willing  Balch, 
called  my  attention  to  the  fact  that  monkeys  do  not 
grasp  with  their  thumbs  as  firmly  or  as  fully  as  man, 
and  that  their  thumbs  are  more  like  a  fifth  finger. 

There  are  many  really  beautiful  Pleistokene  bas 
reliefs  or  drawings.  These  are  on  stone,  on  ivory, 
on  teeth,  on  bone  and  on  horn.  It  is  not  known 
positively  what  tools  were  used,  but  it  seems  most 
probable  that  it  was  simply  a  pointed  bit  of  flint. 
As  a  general  rule  these  drawings  represent  animals 
and  some  of  them  are  masterly.  Among  the  mam- 
mals are  mammoth,  many  horses,  ibex,  chamois, 
saigas,  red  deer,  many  reindeer,  bison,  wild  cattle, 
wild  boar,  bears,  wolves,  foxes,  lynxes,  otters,  rab- 
bits, seal.  Among  the  few  birds  are  swan  and  geese. 
Among  the  fishes  are  salmon  and  pike.  There  are  a 
few  drawings  of  plants.     In  several  of  the  drawings 


PLEISTOKENE    ART.  4t 

there  are  human  figures,  but  these,  as  is  also  the  case 
in  the  drawings  of  some  other  primitive  races,  are 
inferior  artistically  to  the  animals. 

Bison  was  one  of  the  animals  most  often  drawn, 
and  a  sketch  of  two  bison  heads  from  La  Madelaine 
is  noteworthy.  The  reindeer  was  a  favorite  sub- 
ject. From  another  cave  near  Les  Eyzies  comes  a 
splendid  carved  reindeer  bone  knife  handle,  repre- 
senting a  crouching  reindeer,  which  in  its  lines,  con- 
ception and  execution  is  worthy  of  any  sculptor. 
From  the  Kesslerloch  near  Thayingen  in  Germany 
was  taken  a  magnificently  drawn  reindeer  with  its 
head  down  feeding  on  the  herbage  near  some  water. 
There  are  many  excellent  drawings  of  horses.  A 
drawing  of  a  horse's  head  found  in  the  Robin  Hood 
Cave,  Cresswell  Crags,  Derbyshire, ^^  shows  that  some 
Pleistokene  artists  dwelt  at  one  time  in  England. 
Some  of  the  scenes  in  which  horses  appear  show 
that  they  were  a  favorite  quarry  for  the  himters. 
But  the  most  noteworthy  drawings  of  horses  are 
several  which  show  the  horses'  heads  harnessed,  for 
this  proves  positively  that  the  horse  was  domesti- 
cated. 

Probably  the  most  interesting  drawings,  however, 
are  those  of  mammoth  and  hairy  rhinoceros,  because 
they  prove  the  contemporaneity  of  man  with  these 
extinct  mammals.  There  are  some  striking  draw- 
ings of  mammoths  on  mammoths'  tusks :  one  repre- 

^^  British  Mus. 


42  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

senting  a  mammoth  with  long  streaming  hair,  and 
another  from  La  Laugerie  Basse,  the  head  of  a  fu- 
rious mammoth  charging  with  his  tusks  crossed  and 
his  mouth  open,  doubtless  a  memory  sketch  of  an 
unpleasant  incident.  One  head,  well  drawn  on  a 
piece  of  bone,  must  be  a  rhinoceros  tichorinus,  for 
it  has  a  horn  on  the  nose,  and  the  shape  of  the  head 
is  different  from  either  simus,  bicomis,  indicus, 
or  sumatrensis. 

In  many  cases  the  drawing  extends  around  the 
bone.  Mr.  Champion  has  invented  a  method  of 
moulding  the  drawing  and  then  flattening  the 
mould,  so  that  the  reproduction  is  all  on  one  plane, 
and  it  is  extraordinary  how  accurate  these  draw- 
ings are  then  found  to  be.  Many  of  the  drawings 
show  a  decided  sense  of  perspective.  In  one  there 
are  the  legs  and  stomach  of  a  reindeer,  whose 
back  and  head  are  broken  off,  and  just  beyond  is 
a  naked  woman  lying  on  her  back.  In  many  cases 
there  is  only  one  drawing  on  an  object.  Often, 
however,  there  are  two  and  even  three  which  are  all 
mingled  together.  In  one  case,  for  instance,  a 
reindeer  is  lying  on  its  back  with  its  legs  drawn 
directly  thru  the  body  of  a  second  reindeer  which 
is  standing  up  over  it.  In  other  words,  while  the 
Pleistokene  artists  could  do  admirably  one  animal 
or  several  following  one  another  in  a  line,  they  did 
not  succeed  so  well  in  grouping  a  number  and  some 
of  their  efforts  show  a  lack  of  visual  apprehension. 


PLEISTOKENE    ART.  43 

A  certain  number  of  implements  or  at  least 
small  stones,  almost  all  from  one  cave  of  the 
Dordogne,  have  some  still  unexplained  marks  on 
them.  Some  of  them  are  almost  like  some  kind  of 
writing;  a  few  of  them  represent  something  like 
a  sun  emitting  rays.  It  has  been  suggested  that 
these  were  ownership  marks.  A  number  of  these 
stones  have  from  one  to  nine  red  marks  on  them, 
while  others  have  large  dots.  It  is  not  known 
what  these  mean,  but  they  may  be  some  system  of 
numeration. 

In  southwestern  France  and  in  Spain  there  have 
also  been  found  lately  some  remarkable  Pleistokene 
paintings  on  the  walls  of  different  caves,  Altamira, 
Fond  de  Gaume  and  others.  Dr.  Capitan  and  Abbe 
Breuil,  two  of  their  chief  explorers,  have  told  me 
much  about  them.  There  are  sometimes  three  and 
even  four  superposed  paintings  which  will  not  last 
long  after  the  fresh  air  has  access  to  these  caves, 
which  have  for  milleniums  been  blocked  by  rubbish. 
These  paintings  almost  all  represent  the  same  kinds 
of  animals  as  those  of  the  specimens  at  Saint  Germain. 
Mammoth  are  common ;  there  are  several  which  show 
harness  on  horses;  and  there  is  at  least  one  of  a 
rhinoceros  tichorinus.  Some  of  these  paintings  are 
fairly  big,  not  less  than  one  and  a  half  to  two  meters 
long.  The  colors  used  in  them  principally  are  black 
and  some  kind  of  red  ochre.  The  reproductions  by 
the  Abbe  Breuil  show  that  they  have  all  the  identical 


44  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

characteristics  of  the  specimens  at  Saint  Germain, 
and  therefore  they  must  be  the  work  of  the  same 
set  of  artists. 

Pleistokene  art  is  distinctly  an  art  of  observation,  ij 
The  Pleistokene  artists  saw  something  in  the  sur- 
rounding  wild   fauna,    which    appealed    to    them 
artistically,  and  they  recorded  their  impressions  in 
perfect  naiveU  as  well  as  their  imperfect  tools  per- 
mitted.    Most   of   the   drawing   is   as   simple   and 
straightforward  as  possible.     They  omitted  the  feet 
of  their  models,  perhaps  because  these  were  concealed 
from  the  observer  by  the  herbage.     In  their  work 
1  they  show  observation,  a  sense  of  proportion,  draw- 
\  ing,  some  little  composition  and  a  good  deal  of  action. 
Vphere  is  no  suggestion  of  symbolism,  nor  is  there 
1  much  of  what  may  be  called  picture  making.     The 
I  Pleistokene  artist  was  not  trying  to  represent  some 


{ 


idea,   some  philosophical  or  religious  or  historical 

/conception,  but  he  was  trying  to  represent  some- 

I  thing    which    he    had    seen.       He     sought     the 

\plastic  idea,  not  the  subject.      His  point  of  view, 

('  was,  for  instance,  the  exact  opposite  of  the  early 

Flemish  missal  painters,  to  whom  he  was  immeas- 

/    urably  superior  as  an  artist.     His  work  must  be 

\   ranked  as  frank,  true  sketching  from  nature  or  from 

I  memory:   it  is  portraiture  and  falls  among  what  is 

I    known  to  painters  as  a  sketch,  a  study  or  an  im- 

\  pression. 

As  I  have  stated,  the  Pleistokene  statuettes  seem 


PLEISTOKENE    ART.  45 

to  me  to  be  decidedly  sut  generis.  Not  so  with  the 
drawings,  however.  Altho  the  animals  drawn  are 
not  the  same  in  both,  yet  from  the  artistic  side  it 
seems  to  me  there  is  a  decided  resemblance  between 
some  Pleistokene  work  and  that  of  some  Chinese 
and  Japanese  painters.  Mori-Sosen  and  Okio,  for 
instance,  it  seems  to  me,  looked  at  nature  much  as 
did  the  Pleistokene  artists,  and  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  their  art  powers  were  any  greater,  for  if 
their  work  is  more  advanced  it  must  be  set  down 
partly  to  their  better  tools.  There  is  a  resemblance 
between  some  Pleistokene  and  some  Eskimo  draw- 
ings, with  the  advantage  all  on  the  side  of  the 
Pleistokene.  There  appears  also  to  be  decided 
similarity  artistically  between  Pleistokene  and  Bush- 
men drawings,  only  here  also  the  Pleistokene  are 
the  best. 

Whether  we  shall  ever  know  the  type  of  the 
Pleistokene  man  is  at  present  uncertain.  The  hair 
of  the  heads  suggest  an  affinity  with  the  Egyptians, 
some  of  the  figures  show  African  characteristics, 
while  some  of  the  drawings  suggest  East  Asiatic 
work  and  others  Greek  work  and  a  few  Eskimo 
work,  and  there  you  are!  My  own  opinion  is  that 
the  Pleistokenes  were  a  Yellow  race.  Whoever  the 
Pleistokene  men  were,  however,  it  is  certain  that 
they  had  a  high  art  faculty;  one,  all  things  consid- 
ered, quite  as  advanced  as  that  of  any  other  people. 
And   this   shows   conclusively  that   some   at  least 


46  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

among  these  early  men  were  distinctly  intellectual 
beings.  ^^ 

European  Polished  Stone  Period  Art. 

The  Chipped  Stone  peoples  were  succeeded  in 
Europe  by  a  race  of  men  who  polished  some  of  their 
stone  implements.  These  smoothed  stones  are  gen- 
erally called  neoliths,  that  is  new  stones,  and  the 
term  neolithic  peoples  has    been    applied   to  their 

*'  Boucher  de  Perthes:  Antiquites  Celtiques  et  Antediluviennes 
Paris,  1847  and  1857.  Boucher  de  Perthes  deserves  the  credit  of 
having  forced  the  recognition  of  prehistoric  stone  implements 
as  the  works  of  man  on  a  recalcitrant  scientific  world  from  1847 
onwards.     He  also  forcibly  enunciated  the  evolution  theory  in  1857. 

Prof.  W.  Boyd  Dawkins:  Cave  Hunting,  1874:  Early  Man  in 
Britain,  1880.  Dawkins  divided  the  Pleistokenes  into  "River  Drift 
Men"  and  "Cave  Men,"  which  names  are  not  scientifically  correct, 
because  the  same  kind  of  implements  are  found  in  river  bed  drifts 
and  in  caves.  He  was  the  first  to  point  out  that  many  Pleistokene 
implements  closely  resemble  those  of  the  Eskimo,  and  also  that 
there  are  certain  resemblances  between  the  arts  of  these  two  peoples, 
and  he  concluded  that  probably  they  were  related  by  blood.  As 
far  as  my  reading  goes,  this  is  the  earliest  attempt  I  know  of,  to 
deduce  facts  in  ethnology  partly  by  analogies  in  the  fine  arts,  and 
the  method  Dawkins  applied  in  this  isolated  instance  is  something 
like  the  one  I  am  attempting  to  apply  to  all  the  peoples  of  the  world 
by  a  comparison  of  their  arts. 

Gabriel  de  Mortillet:  Le  Prehistoriqiie,  Paris,  1883.  De  Mortillet 
believed  in  Tertiary  man.  He  assigned  at  least  two  hundred  and 
thirty  thousand  years  to  the  Pleistokene  period,  which  he  divided 
into  four  epochs:  the  Chell^en,  of  seventy-eight  thousand  years; 
the  Moust^rien,  of  one  hundred  thousand  years;  the  Solutr^en,  of 
eleven  thousand  years,  and  the  Magdal^n^en,  of  thirty-three  thou- 
sand years.  He  thought  the  oldest  known  art  dates  back  fifty  or 
sixty  thousand  years,  to  the  Solutr^en,  because  at  Solutr^,  de  Ferry 
found  two  sculptures  on  stone  representing  some  deer  and  a  human 
hand.  His  nomenclature  is  not  a  good  one,  because  in  each  case 
the  name  is  local,  and  the  implements  of  each  period  extend  into 
the  next  period. 

Sir  John  Lubbock:    The  Origin  of  Civilization  and  the  primitive 


EUROPEAN    POLISHED    STONE    PERIOD   ART.         47 

users  in  consequence.  The  French  term  of  pierre 
polte,  that  is  poHshed  stone  or  smoothed  stone 
seems,  however,  more  descriptive.  The  poHshed 
stone  implements,  which  show  a  distinct  advance 
in  certain  ways  over  those  of  the  Pleistokene  men, 
are  principally  of  the  form  known  as  axes.  Many 
were  intended  to  be  mounted  in  handles  and  some- 
times they  are  pierced. 

Many  of  these  tribes  lived  in  the  pile  dwellings 
which  have  been  discovered  in  the  Swiss  and  Italian 
lakes,  in  Irish  bogs,  etc.  It  seems  highly  probable 
that  the  megaliths,  menhirs,  alignments,  cromlechs, 
dolmens,  of  France  and  England  were  erected  by  some 
of  the  Polished  Stone  peoples,  and  if  so  they  had  a 

condition  of  man,  London,  1870.  Sir  John  Lubbock  coined  the 
names  "PaleoHthic"  and  "Neolithic." 

Andrew  D.  White:  A  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with 
Theology  in  Christendom,  New  York,  1896. 

Charles  Morris:  Man  and  his  Ancestor,  New  York  and  London, 
1900. 

Dr.  S.  V.  Clevenger:  The  evolution  of  man  and  his  mind,  Chicago, 
1903. 

S.  Reinach:   The  Story  of  Art  throughout  the  Ages,  New  York,  1904. 

Abb^  H.  Breuil:  "Manche  de  Couteau  en  bronze: "  Revue  Arche- 
ologique,  1902,  II,  83-84. 

Abb^  H.  Breuil:  "La  d^g^n^rescence  des  figures  d'animaux  en 
motifs  omementaux  a  I'^poque  du  renne;  "  Academic  des  Inscrip- 
tions et  Belles  Lettres,  1905. 

Dr.  Capitan,  Abb6  Breuil,  Mons.  Ampoulance:  "Une  nouvelle 
grotte  pr^historique : "  Revue  de  I'Ecole  d'Anthropologie  de  Paris, 
October,  1904. 

Dr.  Capitan,  Abb6  Breuil,  Mons.  Peyrony:  "Une  nouvelle  grotte 
a  parois  gravies:"  Revue  de  I'Ecole  d'Anthropologie  de  Paris,  No- 
vember, 1904. 

Mons.  Peyrony:   Les  Eyzies  et  les  environs,  1903. 

Marquis  de  Nadaillac:  "Figures  peintes  ou  incisdes:'!  Revue  des 
questions  scientifiques,  1904. 


48  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

certain  feeling  for  the  art  of  architecture.  There  is 
practically  no  graphic  art  known  in  connection  with 
European  Polished  Stone  times,  except  that  in  some 
dolmens  there  are  scratched  a  few  lines,  parallel, 
diverging  and  concentric.  The  best  perhaps  are 
those  in  the  dolmen  of  Gavrinis,  Morbihan,  which 
can  be  seen  by  any  tourist  and  at  certain  times,  as 
happened  to  myself,  when  the  tides  are  high  and  the 
current  strong,  only  after  an  exciting  sail.  A  few 
axes  were  represented,  and  the  highest  artistic 
achievement  of  the  Polished  Stone  period  seems  to 
be  the  rude  figure  of  a  stone  ax  which  one  sees 
engraved  on  the  roof  of  the  sepulchral  chamber 
of  Dol-ar-Marchant,  near  Locqmariaker.  This  is 
about  all  that  the  Polished  Stone  peoples  left  in  the 
shape  of  graphic  art.  As  Polished  Stone  peoples 
were  certainly  more  advanced  in  their  implements 
than  the  Chipped  Stone  peoples,  the  marked  infe- 
riority of  their  art  is  noteworthy,  and  would  go 
to  show  that  art  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  time, 
locality,  environment  or  culture,  as  of  race.^* 

European  Bronze  Period  Art. 

The  Polished  Stone  age  was  followed,  in  parts 
at  least  of  Eur-Asia,  by  a  Bronze  period.  There 
are  some  rocks  in  Scandinavia  on  which  there  are 

^*  Prof.  W.  Boyd  Dawkins:  Cave  Hunting,  1874:  Early  Man  in 
Britain,  1880. 

Gabriel  de  Mortillet:    Le  Prehistorique,  Paris,  1883. 


EUROPEAN    BRONZE    PERIOD   ART.  49 

engravings  believed  to  date  from  this  period;    and 

some  illustrations^^   of  them  represent  men,  oxen 

and  boats.     The  boats  are  evidently  Viking  ships, 

whose  high  curved  stems  and  stems   suggest  an 

earlier  model  than  the  one  from  Sandefjord^®  in 

Christiania.     The  remnant  of  Scandinavian  art  of 

the  Bronze  age  is  of  a  low  order;   it  is  an  advance 

on  the  art  of  the  Polished  Stone  men,  but  it  is  much 

inferior  to  the  art  of  the  Pleistokenes.     The  sculp-^ 

tures  are  evidently  not  symbolic,  but  seem  rather/ 

to  be  representations  of  some  event  their  maker 

had  witnessed,  and  the  figures  and  boats  are  so  rude, 

evincing  such  a  lack  of  drawing,  form  or  perspective, 

that  they  seem  more  like  picture  writing  than  like 

works  of  art.  ■'' 

Greek  Art, 

The  next  art  in  Europe  in  point  of  time  to  Pleis- 
tokene  art,  appears  to  be  the  art  of  Greece.  Some 
of  it  is  supposed  to  date  back  to  well  before  2000 
B.  C,  and  this  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  Pelasgic 
or  Pre-Mykenian  or  Cyclopean  art.  A  later  stage 
of  it  is  associated  with  the  remains  found  at  Mykenae, 
about  2000  B.  C.  to  800  B.  C,  and  is  usually  called 
Mykenian  art,  while  the  latest  and  great  develop- 
ment is  known  as  Greek  or  Hellenic  art,  about  800 
B.  C.  to  300  A.  D.  Perhaps  as  satisfactory  division 
as  any  would  be  into  Pre-Hellenic  art  and  Hellenic 

"  W.  Boyd  Dawkins:   Early  Man  in  Britain,  1880. 
"Edwin  Swift  Balch:    "The  Lange  Skib  of  Sandefjord:"     CUy 
and  State,  Philadelphia,  September  7,  1899,  page  153. 


So  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

or  Greek  art.  The  Pre-Hellenic  period  seems  to 
have  been  in  a  bronze  stage  of  culture. 

Pre-Hellenic  art  remains  have  been  found  in 
Greece,  in  the  Greek  Archipelago,  especially  Crete, 
and  at  Troy  in  Asia.  An  illustration  of  the  gold 
cups  of  Vaphio^''  of  the  Mykenian  period  shows 
some  men  fighting  with  well  drawn  bulls;  another 
reproduces  a  sword  blade  of  about  the  same  time 
with  men  fighting  with  spears  some  not  so  well 
drawn  jumping  lions,  who  have  the  scissor  action. 
An  illustration  also  of  an  octopus  from  Goumia^^ 
is  a  well  drawn  and  well  observed  piece  of  most 
decorative  work. 

It  seems  as  if  Pre-Hellenic  and  Greek  art  was 
mainly  of  autochthonous  growth.  The  illustrations 
just  mentioned  rather  strongly  resemble  some  Pleis- 
tokene  drawings  and  it  looks  somewhat  as  if  Greek 
art  might  be  a  descendant  of  Pleistokene  art,  and  it 
is  barely  possible  that  the  Greeks  inherited  their 
great  art  abilities  from  the  Pleistokenes.-^^  What 
militates  forcibly  against  this  view,  which  I  do  not 
believe  is  correct,  is  the  length  of  time,  the  many 
thousand  years,  which  must  have  elapsed  between 
the   Pleistokenes   and    the   earlv   Hellenes.    There 


^'  The  New  International  Encyclopcedia,  "Archaeology,"  From 
Mykenae?  or  Tiryns? 

^®  Harriet  A.  Boyd:  "Gournia."  Transactions  Dept.  Arch.,  Univ. 
of  Penna.,  1904,  pages  1-44. 

^*Mons.  S.  Reinach,  The  Story  of  Art  throughout  the  Ages,  sug- 
gests that  Greek  art  descended  from  Pleistokene  art. 


GREEK   ART.  51 

are  some  small  resemblances  between  Kaldean 
art  and  Greek  art,  as  for  instance  the  Kaldean 
Goudeas,  which  might  have  been  done  by  a  Greek 
sculptor,  except  that  their  pose  is  not  Greek.  It 
does  not  seem  therefore  as  if  much  art  influ- 
ence came  to  Greece  from  Asia.  On  the  other 
hand,  some  little  art  influence  must  have  come 
to  Greece  from  Egypt,  but  not  enough,  however, 
to  nullify  the  statement  that  probably  Greek  art 
grew,  budded  and  blossomed  mainly  on  its  own 
soil. 

Some  of  the  Greek  pottery^  goes  back  probably 
to  the  eighth  century  B.  C.  and  some  bronze  figtires 
to  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries.  The  early  Greek 
terra  cotta  statuettes^^  are  poor  and  grotesque.  Some 
from  Myrina,  Asia  Minor,  and  some  from  Smyrna 
are  also  rough  and  poor,  and  similar  to  early  Greek. 
Of  those  from  Tanagra,  the  earliest  are  poor,  the 
later  ones  are  better  and  some  of  these  are  good 
and  graceful. 

One  of  these  early  Greek  terra  cotta  grotesque 
statuettes  in  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  is 
labelled  "doll  or  idol,"  and  this  label  is  an  uncon- 
scious recognition  of  exactly  what  the  so-called 
"idols"  of  non-White  races  are:  namely,  something 
similar  to  the  figiires  we  make  to  amuse  children 
and  which  we  call  "dolls."     It  is  not  a  mystical 

'"  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts.     British  Mus. 
'*  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts.     British  Mus. 


52  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

instinct,  but  an  elementary  art  instinct  which  is  the 
underlying  cause  of  both. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  the  Greeks  were  the  founders 
of  modem  European  painting.  A  painted  grave- 
stone of  the  fourth  century  B.  C.^^  of  which  both 
drawing  and  painting  are  poor,  is  an  early  attempt 
at  a  painted  figure.  The  Greek  paintings  of  heads 
found  in  the  Fayum,^^  appear  to  be  the  first  attempts 
at  what  we  should  consider  portrait  painting. 

Greek  art  certainly  spread  over  much  of  the 
eastern  Mediterranean.  A  good  deal  has  been 
foimd  in  Egypt.  It  scattered  also  along  North 
Africa  as  far  at  least  as  Tunis.  From  the  Cyrenaica^* 
there  are  several  good  heads  which  are  probably 
Greek.  At  Carthage  many  interesting  specimens 
of  art  are  being  dug  up  and  some  of  these  are  surely 
Greek.  A  seal  with  a  horse  in  action  on  it  is  fine. 
One  splendid  work  of  art  is  the  statue  of  a  woman, 
which  formed  the  lid  of  her  sarcophagus.  It  is 
believed  to  be  the  statue  of  a  Carthaginian  priestess 
by  a  Greek  artist.  The  statue  is  certainly  in  the 
best  style  of  Greek  art,  but  with  a  most  original 
dress,  probably  the  robes  of  the  priestess,  which  en- 
velops her  with  two  great  birds',  probably  eagles',^* 
wings.     It  is  one  of  the  finest  statues  I  ever  saw. 

Greek  art  also  spread  to  southern  Italy,  where 

"  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 

*'  Univ.  of  Penna.  Mus.  Arch.     National  Gallery,  London. 

'*  Louvre. 

'*  Mus^e  Lavigerie. 


GREEK   ART.  S3 

it  left  the  beautiful  temples  at  Paestum  as  its  chief 
architectural  relic. 

In  Sicily,  also,  art  is  mainly  of  Greek  extraction, 
altho  in  its  earlier  stages  it  shows  Egyptian  or  Phe- 
nician  influence.  There  are  apparently  no  art  remains 
from  either  the  Chipped  Stone  or  the  Polished  Stone 
period,  both  of  which  stages  of  culture,  Sicily,  like 
most  of  the  rest  of  the  world,  went  thru.  There 
are  specimens  of  chipped  stone  implements'^  from 
various  parts  of  Sicily,  among  others  from  grottoes 
near  Termini,  which  are  all  rather  late  in  their 
forms. '^  There  are  also  polished  stone  implements 
from  various  parts  of  Sicily. 

The  most  notable  works  of  art  in  Sicily  are  the 
Greek  buildings  at  Syracuse  and  especially  the  beau- 
tiful Greek  temples  at  Girgenti.  It  is  impressive  to 
the  visitor  to  the  temple  of  Hero  or  of  Concord,  to 
feel  how  three  or  four  centuries  B.C.,  Girgenti  must 
have  been  in  an  advanced  stage  of  culture,  while 
now  the  sight  of  the  better  dressed  natives  carrying 
a  44-40  Winchester  carbine  or  a  double-barrelled 
shotgun — there  is  no  four -legged  or  winged  game — 
makes  one  realize  that  southern  Sicily  has  reverted 
to  semi-barbarism. 

From  Selinunte  there  are  many  remains'^  and  a 
number  of  bronze  implements  found  there  show  that 
the  Greek  Sicilian  towns  were  in  a  Bronze  stage. 

^^  Museo  Nazionale,  Palermo. 
"  Magdal^nden  of  Mortillet. 
'*  Museo  Nazionale,  Palermo. 


54  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

There  are  some  figures  resembling  those  from  Tana- 
gra,  and  some  of  these  show  a  tendency  to  the  ob- 
hque  eye.  On  some  stone  metopes  from  the  temple 
there  are  several  early  heads  of  Medusa  putting  out 
her  tongue:  the  humans  have  thick  arms  and  legs 
and  rather  staring  eyes;  the  horses  are  better  and 
more  Athenian  in  style,  altho  when  they  show 
motion,  and  there  is  almost  no  motion  in  Sicilian 
art,  it  is  the  erroneous  scissor  action.  There  are 
one  or  two  sphinxes  with  wings,  somewhat  Egyp- 
tian or  Assyrian  in  style  and  these  are  probably 
Phenician. 

From  Saluntum^®  there  are  some  paintings,  which 
are  surely  Greek.  A  ntimber  of  colors  are  used  and 
the  tone  is  dark  from  age.  They  are  decorative 
panels  with  well  drawn  and  painted  theatrical 
masks  and  garlands  of  fruit,  the  details  of  which  are 
well  carried  out.  Marble  is  imitated  in  some  places, 
and  light  falls  from  the  upper  left  hand  comer  as  in 
modem  architectural  drawings.  There  is  nothing 
Japanese  about  the  masks,  in  fact  these  panels 
suggest  purely  modem  European  or  American  tech- 

nic. 

Etruscan  Art. 

In  the  last  millennium  B.  C,  about  1000  B.  C.  to 
200  B.  C,  there  grew  up  an  art  in  Italy  which  is 
known  as  Etruscan  art.  I  do  not  think  that  there 
can  be  any  doubt  that  this  art  was  imported,  for  it 

"  Museo  Nazionale,  Palermo. 


ETRUSCAN    ART.  55 

shows  plainly  some  Greek  and  some  Egyptian  or 
Phenician  characteristics. 

From  Chiusi  in  Etruria  come  some  interesting 
specimens. ^^  There  are  many  small  boxes  to  hold 
ashes ;  many  of  these  are  painted.  Among  the  colors 
are  some  bright  yellows,  a  dull  red  and  a  little  blue. 
There  are  many  small  tombs.  These  all  have  figures 
on  them,  all  leaning  on  the  left  elbow  and  holding  a 
round  dish  with  a  lump  in  the  center,  possibly  the 
obolus  for  Charon,  and  this  would  mean,  of  course, 
a  Greek  ancestry.  Some  of  the  bas-reliefs  on  these 
boxes  or  tombs  and  one  or  two  of  the  figures  are 
distinctly  Egyptian.  One  of  these  figures  has  movable 
head  and  hands  of  terra  cotta;  the  body,  according 
to  the  guardian  of  the  Museum  in  Palermo,  is  tufa. 
This  figure  is  sitting  in  a  chair  and  is  distinctly 
Egyptian  or  something  like  Goudeas.  The  influence 
of  Egypt  on  Etruscan  art  is  plainly  visible  here,  and 
it  shows  to  a  certainty  that  Etruscan  art  was  at 
least  partly  descended  from  Egyptian  or  Phenic- 
ian art. 

There  are  two  Etruscan  stone  sarcophagi^^  which 
in  conception  and  execution,  are  singularly  like 
such  monuments  from  the  Middle  Ages.  On  each 
side  is  a  life  size  figure  of  a  man  and  a  woman,  peace- 
ful in  death,  which  in  proportions  and  execution  are 
certainly    good.     The    sides    of    these    coffins    are 

^°  Museo  Nazionale,  Palermo. 
^^  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 


56  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

ornamented  with  bas-reliefs,  which  much  resemble  a 
Greek  frieze.  The  figures  of  men  and  horses  are  fairly- 
well  drawn  and  show  observation.  Some  lions, 
however,  are  purely  conventional  and  so  inferior  to 
the  other  figures  as  to  make  certain  that  the  artist 
had  never  seen  one.  The  men  and  horses  are  so  well 
drawn  that  it  seems  probable  that  these  coffins  are 
of  a  late  date. 

In  the  Grotta  del  Barone  and  the  Tomb  of  Leop- 
ards, both  at  Cometo,  there  are  some  wall  paint- 
ings,^^ which  form  a  kind  of  frieze,  done  in  red,  black, 
gray  and  green.  There  are  men,  horses  and  trees: 
the  figures  are  stiff  and  archaic  and  show  no  obser- 
vation, standing  in  a  purely  formal  row  without  any- 
pictorial  composition. 

Roman  Art. 
Roman  art,  about  300  B.  C.  to  400  A.  D.,  is  un- 
questionably not  of  autochthonous  growth,  but  a 
descendant  from  several  other  arts.  It  is  principally 
an  adaptation  of  Greek  art  but  it  must  also  have  roots 
in  Etruscan  art.  The  expansion  and  the  com- 
merce of  the  Roman  Empire  also  brought  the  Ro- 
mans into  contact  with  so  many  races  outside  of 
Italy  that  Roman  art  was  surely  influenced  by 
extraneous  influences  from  Egypt,  from  Western 
Asia,  from  North  Africa,  and  possibly  even  from 
parts  of  Europe. 

^^  Copies,  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 


ROMAN    ART.  57 

Still  like  all  other  races  which  have  risen  into  what 
we  call  a  civilized  condition,  the  Romans  evolved 
some  art  of  their  own  to  meet  their  needs.  And  it 
seems  to  me  that  their  best  efforts  were  principally 
in  the  direction  of  architecture.  This  architecture, 
with  its  temples,  its  aqueducts,  its  arenas  and  its 
fortifications,  rose  in  Rome,  spread  over  Italy,  and 
then  over  the  limits  of  the  Roman  Empire,  in  North 
Africa,  in  Germany,  in  Britain,  in  fact  to  wherever 
the  Romans  held  sway. 

The  arena  was  one  of  the  peculiarly  Roman  forms 
of  architecture.  Splendid  as  is  the  Colosseum,  the 
arena  at  Verona,  those  at  Nimes  and  Aries,  and  the 
one  at  El  Djem  in  Timis,  yet,  when  one  views  those 
great  structures  and  thinks  of  all  the  cruelties  and 
public  tortures  and  legal  murders  which  took  place 
in  them,  one  can  but  look  on  their  makers  as  semi- 
barbarians  and  feel  glad  that  their  power  was  wiped 
off  the  face  of  the  earth  by  people  whom  they  pre- 
sumed to  call  barbarians. 

Aqueducts  were  another  branch  of  architecture 
developed  by  the  Romans,  and  when  one  sees  those 
in  the  Campagna  or  the  one  bringing  the  water 
from  Zaghouan  to  Carthage,  or  the  one  in  the  Val 
Toumanche  supplying  Aosta,  or  above  all  the  stu- 
pendous Pont  du  Gard,  one  feels  inclined  to  think 
that  not  all  the  Romans  were  barbarians,  but  that 
some  of  them  had  some  good  traits. 

The  long  lines  of  fortifications  erected  in  Germany, 


58  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

in  Britain,  in  the  Balkan  country,  and  the  great 
armed  camps  erected  along  them  and  also  in  North 
Africa  are  other  essentially  Roman  architectural 
mommients.  Only  the  Chinese  in  their  great  wall 
north  and  west  of  Pekin,  ever  built  anything  like 
the  Pfahlgraben  or  Limes  Imperii  Romani  which 
stretches  five  hundred  and  forty  kilometers  from 
Honnigen  on  the  Rhine  to  Hienheim  on  the 
Danube.^^ 

The  Romans  left  many  art  remains  all  over 
their  empire.  From  North  Africa,  for  instance, 
there  are  many  relics^^  which  are  almost  all  Roman, 
altho  a  few  are  Greek.  From  Algeria  and  Tunis 
there  are  some  fair  bas-reliefs  and  several  fair  stat- 
ues and  from  Carthage  there  are  many  mosaics 
like  those  now  in  Tunis.  Apparently  mosaics 
were  in  favor  at  Carthage  itself,  for  a  number 
of  mosaic  floors,  probably  Roman,  have  been  dug 
up  in  Carthage  and  its  vicinity.^^  They  are  de- 
cidedly rough,  not  only  in  their  texture,  but  in  their 
ideas  of  drawing.  Men,  animals,  fishes,  plants,  and 
some  inanimate  objects  like  boats  are  attempted, 
but  they  are  decidedly  formless. 

Pompeiian  pictures^®  are  forerunners  in  every 
respect  of  European  pictures.    They  show  that  the 

*'  Edwin  Swift  Balch:  "Roman  and  Prehistoric  Remains  in 
Central  Germany:"  The  Journal  of  the  Franklin  Institute,  vol.  CLV., 
January,  1903,  pages.  55-71. 

^*  Louvre. 

^^  Carthaginian  Museum  at  the  Bardo,  Tunis. 

.'*  Naples  Museum. 


ROMAN    ART.  59 

old  Romans  knew  about  as  much  about  good  paint- 
ing as  the  average  painter  of  the  Renaissance  or 
of  to-day.  Some  of  the  pictures  are  admirably 
composed.  The  figures  are  observed  much  as  we 
do,  and  often  they  are  well  handled  and  well  model- 
led. Some  of  the  figures,  such  as  tight  rope  dancers, 
have  excellent  action.  One  or  two  cupids  with 
wings  are  perfect  forerunners  of  angel  heads  in  the 
pictures  of  such  Middle  Age  painters  as  Raphael. 
A  woman  on  a  vase  sports  a  parasol.  Animals 
and  birds  are  poorer  than  hiimans.  There  are  a 
good  many  landscapes  and  a  good  many  seascapes, 
generally  with  buildings  in  some  part  of  the  pic- 
ture. These  are  generally  long  and  low  in  shape 
and  show  good  feeling  for  composition  and  per- 
spective. Many  of  the  pictures  are  rather  large, 
perhaps  two  meters  one  way.  Many  of  the  de- 
tails, such  as  the  eyes  or  hair  of  the  figures,  when 
looked  at  close,  are  hard  in  texture.  This  is  pos- 
sibly due  to  the  medium,  water  or  egg  color  on 
plaster.  Among  colors,  a  dull  red  rouge  de  Pouz- 
zoles,  a  bright  yellow,  a  pale  blue,  a  green  and 
black  are  the  most  prominent.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  these  old  Pompeiian  painters  had  many  of  the 
qualities  of  good  ordinary  European  painters,  how- 
ever with  but  little  mystery  and  no  luminarism. 
There  is  the  strongest  family  resemblance  to  Greek 
art,  none  to  Pleistokene,  East  Asiatic  or  Afro-Aus- 
tralasian art. 


60  comparative  art 

Byzantine  Art. 

During  the  centuries  when  the  Roman  Empire 
was  crumbhng  politically,  many  of  its  subjects 
were  gradually  changing  some  of  their  ideas  about 
mystical  subjects,  and  they  apparently  in  time  con- 
sidered that  a  man's  spirit  was  everything  and  his 
body  of  no  importance,  and  possibly  on  this  account 
the  art  of  the  Romans  went  to  pieces  and  drifted 
into  shapelessness  and  hideous  angularity.  The  art 
of  Europe,  after  being  for  some  centuries  in  a  state 
of  coma,  revived  eventually  after  about  1000  A.  D. 
in  Italy  and  in  the  Netherlands. 

Mainly  in  the  north  eastern  portion  also  of  the 
debris  of  the  Roman  Empire,  an  art  slowly  evolved, 
which  also  was  occupied  with  spiritual  themes,  and 
which  evidently  rather  despised  the  human  physi- 
cal form.  As  Constantinople  was  the  chief  politi- 
cal center  of  this  second  branch  of  degenerate 
Roman  art,  the  latter  has  become  known  as  By- 
zantine art.  Form  and  drawing  in  Byzantine  art 
are  usually  bad,  infantile,  from  any  artistic  stand- 
point. In  decorative  color,  however,  the  Byzan- 
tine artist,  probably  as  the  result  of  eastern  in- 
fluence, showed  a  certain  amount  of  feeling,  and 
accomplished  some  good  work. 

Specimens  of  Byzantine  art,  or  at  least  of  what 
was  probably  due  to  its  influence,  are  found  in  a 
good  many  places  on  the  Mediterranean.  From 
Kabr-Hiram,  near  Tyr,  in  Syria,  came  some  mo- 


BYZANTINE   ART.  61 

saics  from  the  Church  of  Saint  Christopher.^^  These 
are  supposed  to  be  Byzantine  and  altho  not  quite 
in  the  same  style  of  drawing,  yet  they  are  some- 
thing Hke  the  mosaics  from  Carthage.  Some  By- 
zantine art  also  spread  to  Abyssinia.^^ 

Saint  Sophia  in  Constantinople  is  considered  per- 
haps the  finest  example  of  Byzantine  art.  San 
Marco  in  Venice  is  the  best  known  one,  however, 
and  it  doubtless  was  built  as  the  result  of  Venetian 
intercourse  with  Constantinople.  The  Cappella  Pa- 
latina  at  Palermo  is  fine :  it  has  some  pointed  arches 
and  is  old  gold  in  tone.  The  Duomo  at  Monreale 
near  Palermo  is  also  a  notable  specimen.  This  is 
sometimes  spoken  of  as  Gothic  Romanesque,  pos- 
sibly because  of  the  pointed  arches,  but  the 
decoration  is  decidedly  Byzantine.  The  interior  is 
one  of  the  grandest  I  ever  visited,  and  as  there  are 
no  colored  windows,  it  is  easy  to  be  seen.  Colored 
windows,  anyhow,  are  an  architectural  blemish,  as 
the  function  of  a  window  is  to  admit  light.  The 
walls  within  are  all  covered  with  golden  mosaics 
representing  biblical  scenes.  The  whole  color  note 
is  too  purely  yellow,  and  in  this  respect  it  is  in- 
ferior to  the  Chiirch  of  the  Savior  at  Moscow. 

Indeed  Byzantine  art,  which  is  practically  a  relig- 
ious art,  naturally  went  with  the  Greek  Church  to 
Russia,  and  its  last  expiring  pictorial  vestiges  are 

^'  Louvre. 

38  J.  Theodore  Bent:   The  Sacred  City  of  the  Ethiopians,  1893. 


62  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

found  to-day  in  the  copies  still  being  painted  there 
of  the  old  ikons  which  one  sees  in  Saint  Peters- 
burg, Moscow  and  Nijni-Novgorod,  ikons  out  of 
drawing  and  in  villainous  color,  which  the  admiring 
tourist  is  told,  mirabile  dictu,  were  painted  in  oils 
by  Saint  Luke  over  a  thousand  years  before  oil 
painting  was  invented. 

The  churches  of  the  Russian  people,  however,  are 
finer  than  their  painting.  Some  of  them  are  most 
impressive.  The  churches  of  the  Savior  and  Saint 
Basil  in  Moscow  are  superb  specimens  of  colored 
architecture,  and  on  coming  away  from  their  beau- 
ties, Gothic  cathedrals,  with  their  cold  gray  stone 
walls  and  pillars,  seem  as  if  they  were  built  of  mud. 
The  Russians  use  pure  the  most  brilliant  pigments, 
emerald  green,  ultramarine  blue,  vermilion,  and  gold 
leaf,  but,  to  my  eye  at  least,  their  architecture  is 
harmonious  and  beautiful. 

One  of  their  most  interesting  churches,  from  the 
ethnological  point  of  view,  is  the  one  at  Sitka, 
Alaska.  For  it  is  the  last  outpost  of  the  east- 
ward movement  of  Byzantine  art  across  Siberia. 
It  is  from  the  Russian  Byzantine  art  that  some 
of  the  natives  of  Alaska  got  some  of  their  ideas 
of  color,  and  such  a  totem  pole  as  the  one  at 
Seattle,  is  an  interesting  example  of  how  the  art 
of  one  race  was  affected  by  and  had  grafted  upon 
it  a  portion,  in  this  case  the  color,  of  the  art  of 
another  race. 


flemish  and  italian  art.  63 

Flemish  and  Italian  Art. 

In  the  summer  of  1902,  an  exhibition  was  held  in 
Bruges,  Belgium,  of  the  works  of  old  Flemish 
painters,  which  afforded  to  the  fortunate  visitor  an 
opportunity  to  study,  in  a  manner  which  has  per- 
haps never  been  possible  anywhere  else,  the  evolution 
of  early  European  painting.^^  In  the  Hotel  du  Gou- 
vemement  Provincial,  on  the  Place  du  Beffroy,  there 
were  brought  together  the  Memlings  from  the  Hopi- 
tal  de  Saint  Jean,  many  Memlings  and  Van  Eycks 
from  private  collections  in  England  and  France  and 
a  number  of  other  early  Flemish  pictures.  One  of 
these  latter  of  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury shows  that  the  artist  was  striving  for  the 
effects  of  lighting  attained  by  Rembrandt  a  hundred 
years  later.  In  the  Gruuthuus  also  there  was  placed 
a  large  collection  of  missals  and  illtiminated  manu- 
scripts dating  from  about  the  tenth  to  the  fifteenth 
centuries. 

Examined  in  connection  with  the  oil  paintings, 
these  missals  are  an  object  lesson  in  the  evolution  of 
European  painting,  especially  of  that  of  the  north- 
em  countries.  Beginning  about  the  tenth  century, 
the  earliest  illtiminations  show  an  art  knowledge 
on  a  par  with  that  of  an  inartistic  child  about  eight 
years  old.   As  the  centuries  roll  on,  the  illuminations 

®*  The  substance  of  this  chapter  is  contained  in  a  letter  which  I 
wrote  on  July  8,  1902,  and  which  was  published  in  The  Nation,  New 
York,  July  24,  1902,  and  in  The  Evening  Post,  New  York,  Jvdy  26, 
1902. 


64  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

improve;  drawing  creeps  in,  so  does  color;  glimpses 
of  landscape  begin  to  appear  behind  the  figures, 
until  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  some  really 
fine  water  colors  are  produced.  Some  of  these  show 
a  close  kinship  with  the  oils  of  Van  Eyck  and  Mem- 
ling.  Indeed,  so  closely  do  some  men  at  arms  repre- 
sented in  one  of  the  manuscripts  resemble  the  men  at 
arms  in  the  legend  of  Saint  Ursula  of  Memling  that 
it  seems  quite  possible  that  the  water  color  was 
painted  by  Memling  himself. 

The  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  Bruges 
exhibit  was  that  the  earliest  oil  paintings  were  only 
enlarged  prayerbook  illustrations  carried  out  more 
thoroly  in  a  different  medium.  The  aims  and 
the  methods  of  the  painters,  and  possibly  the 
painters  themselves,  were  the  same  in  both,  and  the 
only  notable  difference  was  that  the  oils  were  larger 
and  more  elaborate  than  the  water  colors. 

I  am  perhaps  wrong  in  my  interpretation,  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  this  Flemish  art  was  principally 
of  native  growth,  and  that  it  depended  on  starting 
on  no  older  art  except  probably  on  the  mystical 
monstrosities  which  we  call  Byzantine  painting. 
It  certainly  lacks  any  of  the  qualities  of  Greek 
or  Roman  art,  or  indeed  in  its  first  stages  it  lacks 
any  of  the  marks  of  any  good  art.  The  early  illumi- 
nations reveal  clearly  that  the  painters  thought 
only  of  one  thing,  namely,  the  subject.  Their 
work  is  religious  genre.     It  is  an  attempt  to  rep- 


FLEMISH   AND    ITALIAN    ART.  65 

resent  some  saint  or  some  sacred  scene.  Mo- 
tive, observation  of  nature,  beauty  are  totally 
lacking.  There  is  no  symbolism,  it  is  not  pic- 
ture writing;  it  is  an  attempt  to  represent  what 
the  artists  thought  about  some  event  or  personage 
connected  with  the  church.  At  first  it  is  hope- 
lessly rough  and  unintelligent  and  there  is  none  of 
the  observation  of  nature  that  we  find  among  the 
Pleistokenes,  the  Babylonians,  or  the  Bushmen, 
nor  any  of  the  beauty  sometimes  found  in  the 
decorative  patterns  of  savages.  And  the  point 
which  strikes  me  as  especially  noteworthy  and  sig- 
nificant, is  that  Flemish  and  Italian  art,  practi- 
cally the  beginnings  of  modem  European  art,  began 
with  the  subject,  and  that  drawing,  form,  values, 
color,  were  only  slowly  noticed  and  gradually  in- 
troduced. 

Egyptian  Art. 

Egypt  is  one  of  the  centers  where  art  probably 
grew  up  almost  autochthonously.  Some  art  may 
have  come  to  Egypt  from  Kaldea,  but  the  data  are 
still  too  imcertain  to  make  such  a  statement,  altho 
there  must  have  been  intercommunication  between 
the  two  coimtries  at  an  early  date. 

I  have  unfortunately  never  been  to  Egypt,  and 
have  only  studied  the  art  specimens  in  Boston, 
Washington,  Paris  and  London.  Therefore  this 
chapter  must  be  brief,  but  I  hope,  as  far  as  it  goes, 
that  it  is  acciirate. 


66  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

Egypt  has  certainly  been  through  a  Chipped 
Stone  and  a  Polished  Stone  period.  There  are  some 
fine  chipped  stone  hatchets  from  Egypt, ^^  of  which 
one  half  is  bleached  by  the  sun  and  the  other  half 
darkened  by  lying  in  the  ground.  Mons.  B.  Cham- 
pion, curator  of  the  Mus^e  de  Saint  Germain,  told 
me  it  was  thought  that  they  split  naturally,  and  ap- 
parently one  half  was  buried  while  the  other  re- 
mained lying  on  the  desert  sands.  Mr.  Upham,  of 
the  Smithsonian  Institution,  stated  there  could  be 
no  doubt  of  these  differently  colored  halves  of 
implements  belonging  together,  because  when  the 
right  pieces  were  found,  the  fracture  coincided 
absolutely.  From  Somaliland  also  come  many 
chipped  stone  implements  of  a  somewhat  advanced 
type,*^  much  like  the  Egyptian  specimens.  These 
were  found  by  an  English  acquaintance  of  mine, 
Mr.  H.  W.  Seton-Karr,  who,  with  Mr.  Charles  C. 
Binney  and  myself  made  in  1880  the  first  ascent  of 
and  christened  the  Piz  Bevers  in  the  Engadine.^ 
No  art  has  been  discovered  from  the  Chipped  Stone 
period,  which  may  properly  be  called  the  Prehis- 
toric epoch,   in  Egypt. 

Egyptian  art  itself,  altho  antedating  some  parts 
of  the  Polished  Stone  and  Bronze  epochs  in  Europe, 
must  be   considered  as  belonging  to  the  historic 


*^  Mus^e  de  Saint  Germain.     Smithsonian  Inst. 

*^  Smithsonian  Inst, 

*2  Alpine  Journal,  vol.  X.,  1882,  page  162. 


EGYPTIAN    ART.  67 

period,  because  there  are  some  bibliographical  data 
in  connection  with  it  pretty  much  from  the  beginning. 
It  certainly  begins  before  3000  B.  C.  There  seems 
to  be  great  diversity  of  opinion,  however,  among  the 
specialists  on  Egypt,  in  regard  to  Egyptian 
chronology. 

Whatever  the  exact  dates  may  be,  some  early 
Egyptian  art  is  decidedly  good.  For  instance, 
from  as  early  as  the  Third  or  Fifth  Dynasty,  4000 
B.  C.  to  3500  B.  C,  we  have  three  panels  from  the 
tomb  of  Hosi,*^  which  show  good  art  ability;  the 
figure  of  a  man  on  each  of  them  bears  a  decided 
resemblance  to  an  Amerind.  There  are  also  some 
reliefs  from  the  tomb  of  Ti,  Fifth  Dynasty,  3500 
B.  C.,**  which  show  many  figures  of  animals,  oxen, 
donkeys,  geese,  cranes,  a  gazelle,  an  oryx,  which 
are  well  drawn  and  full  of  spirit  and  action;  the 
figures  of  men,  which  are  in  profile,  are  rather  stiff er ; 
nevertheless,  they  are  the  best  early  figure  drawing 
I  have  seen.  A  really  admirable  piece  of  colored 
sculpture,  known  as  the  Egyptian  Scribe,^^  also  dates 
back   to   the   Fifth   Dynasty. 

Perhaps  the  chief  characteristic  of  Egyptian  art 
is  its  vastness:  the  huge  pyramids,  the  enormous 
temples  and  the  big  statues  seem  to  me  to  impress 
more  by  their  size  than  by  their  beauty.     Never - 

*^  Casts,  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 
**  Casts,  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 
*^  Louvre. 


68  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

theless,  a  good  many  of  the  sculptures  in  London 
and  Paris,*®  mostly  from  the  later  dynasties,  have 
a  decided  sense  of  beauty.  Egyptian  figures,  as  a 
rule,  are  quiet  and  dignified,  and  there  is  less  at- 
tempt at  expressing  violent  motion  in  Egyptian 
than  in  Assyrian  art.  Action  and  anatomy  are 
often  well  understood  and  expressed,  and  both, 
in  their  animals  and  in  their  human  figures  it  is 
evident  that  the  Egyptians  observed  nature  care- 
fully. Some  of  their  sculptures,  however,  as  for 
instance  two  small  figures  of  painted  limestone 
of  Nenhetefka  and  his  wife  Neferseshemes  of  about 
2500  B.  C.,*^  are  rough  and  conventional. 

The  Egyptians  sometimes  must  have  used  color 
on  their  sculptures,  for  at  least  one  Egyptian  bas- 
relief*^  is  painted  a  dull  Pompeiian  red. 

The  Egyptians  sometimes  dug  out  their  bas-reliefs 
below  the  surface  of  the  stone,  an  unusual  mode  of 
work.  For  instance,  in  a  granite  column  and  on  a 
granite  slab,*^  the  figures  are  cut  out  from  the  granite 
and  the  outline  stands  out  as  a  deep  shadow.  The 
figures  are  conventional  and  in  profile.  One  has 
the  head  of  a  sheep. 

Figures  with  animal  heads  are  ntimerous  in  Egyp- 
tian art:  a  zoologically  interesting  one  is  that  of 
the  god  Set,  brother  and  murderer  of  Osiris,  whose 

*'  British  Mus.     Louvre. 
"  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 
*'  Louvre. 
<»  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 


,     EGYPTIAN    ART.  69 

head,  after  long  puzzling  archeologists,  turns  out 
to  be  the  head  of  the  okapi.^  This  particular  figure  / 
proves  that  the  Egyptians  had  intercourse  in  Central 
Africa  at  least  up  to  the  great  Kongo  forest.  The 
number  of  figures  with  animal  heads,  however, 
brings  up  the  thought,  suggested  by  Mr.  Stow^^  about 
the  Bushmen,  whether  these  animal  headed  figures 
did  not  arise  from  disguises  of  animal  and  bird  skins 
used  by  hunters.  Later  some  mystical  significance 
may  have  become  attached  to  them. 

A  robe  of  justification'^^  and  some  mimimy  cases^ 
show  a  rough,  conventional  and  formal  art.  The 
heads,  however,  are  painted  small  proportionally  to 
the  size  of  the  case.  This  shows  White  art  char- 
acteristics and  not  African  art  characteristics. 

A  nimiber  of  casts  of  Egyptian  sculptures,  placed 
just  alongside  of  some  Mexican  sculptures,^^  have 
almost  no  resemblance  to  Mexican  art.  There 
is  none  of  the  kind  of  ornamentation  so  prevalent 
in  Mexico.  Egyptian  art  is  more  developed,  better 
proportioned,  the  faces  are  more  the  White  type. 
Mexican  art  is  much  rougher,  less  beautiful,  coarser, 
largely  in  square  blocks.  The  ornamentation  on 
the  mummy  cases  I  have  seen  is  also  totally  distinct 
from  the  ornamentation  on  Mexican  monuments. 

5"  La  Nature,  31st  year,  6  June,  1903. 

^^  George  W.  Stow:   The  Native  Races  of  South  Africa,  1905. 

"  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 

*'  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts.    U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 

"  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


70  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

On  the  whole,  I  cannot  see  that  Egyptian  art 
shows  much  relation  to  other  arts.  There  are 
undoubtedly  some  resemblances  to  Kaldean  art, 
and  Greek  art  may  have  drawn  some  early  inspi- 
rations from  it.  It  is  a  White  man's  art,  for  the 
figures  always  have  good  proportions,  and  never 
the  big  heads,  short  bodies,  and  tiny  legs  of  African 
art.  This  would  militate  against  the  view  that  the 
Egyptians  were  a  mixture  of  Semitic  and  Negro 
stock.  There  is  little  resemblance  to  South  Asiatic 
art  or  East  Asiatic  art,  and  I  can  see  nothing  but 
accidental  resemblances  to  Mexican  art.^^ 

Arab  Art. 
Arab  art  had  its  origin  in  Arabia  and  Egypt,  in 
the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century  A.  D.  Its 
peculiarities  and  deficiencies  are  clearly  due  to 
the  teaching  of  the  religion  of  Muhammed  to 
Orientals,  and  Arab  art  might  therefore  equally  well 
be  called  the  art  of  El  Islam.     The  Muhammxedans, 

„    55  c.  F,  Keary:  The  Dawn  of  History,  1898. 

Dr.  Flinders  Petrie:  A  History  of  Egypt.  Dr.  Petrie  assigns  the 
date  4777  B.  C.  as  the  probable  beginning  of  the  First  Dynasty,  and 
the  date  1327  B.  C.  as  that  of  the  Nineteenth.  He  thinks  art  goes 
back  to  at  least  4500  B.  C,  and  that  it  rose  to  its  height  in  the 
Fourth  Dynasty,  3998-3721  B.  C,  when  it  was  unique  in  its  splendor; 
then  that  it  deteriorated,  to  rise  again  in  the  Twelfth  Dynasty, 
2778-2565  B.  C,  and  then  that  it  deteriorated  once  more. 

Professor  G.  Steindorflf:  Baedeker' s  Egypt,  1902.  Prof.  Stein  dor  ff 
dates  the  earliest  historic  period  before  2500  B.  C,  the  Fourth  to 
Sixth  Dynasties  from  2500  to  2200  B.  C,  and  the  Twelfth  to  Four- 
teenth Dynasties  from  about  2200  to  1700  B.  C,  and  he  thinks  it 
was  during  these  periods  that  art  reached  its  high  level. 

R.  Talbot  Kelly;   Egypt,  Painted  and  Described,  1902. 


ARAB    ART.  71 

Arabs  and  others,  were  forbidden  by  their  reUgion 
from  using  human  or  animal  figures  in  their  art. 
But  as  the  Arab  race  unquestionably  has  a  love  and 
feeling  for  color  and  decoration,  they  were  impelled 
to  satisfy  their  artistic  desires  in  some  way,  and  they 
did  so  in  their  dress,  in  their  architecture  and  its 
decorations,  and  they  certainly  produced  some  ex- 
cellent art. 

It  seems  probable  that  Arab  art  was  partly  an 
evolution  from  Roman  art  and  Byzantine  art.  The 
Arabs  at  first  simply  took  the  buildings  the  Romans 
and  early  Christians  had  left  and  adapted  them  to 
their  own  purposes.  As  they  were  not  allowed  to 
mimic  the  forms  of  humans,  they  began  by  applying 
colors  in  broad  masses,  and  gradually  developed  a 
form  of  interior  carving  or  plaster  work  with 
curiously  interwoven  designs  and  patterns,  which 
often  are  most  artistic. 

The  most  beautiful  Arab  art  I  have  myself  seen  is 
the  palace  of  the  Bey  of  Tunis  at  the  Bardo  and  the 
Musetim  at  the  Bardo.  There  are  many  tiles  which 
have  decorations  in  black,  blue,  green,  yellow,  but 
almost  no  red.  The  patterns  are  almost  all  taken 
from  flowers,  altho  there  are  some  which  are  so 
conventionalized  as  decorations  that  it  is  impossible 
to  tell  the  original  motives.  There  are  a  few  at- 
tempts at  suggesting  panthers  and  lions,  but  these 
are  almost  formless  and  show  utter  lack  of  drawing 
and  observation.     Still  these  attempts  show  that 


72  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

Moslems  did  not  always  altogether  obey  their  pro- 
phet but  that  they  sometimes  tried  to  limn  animals 
in  defiance  of  his  prohibition.  It  is  from  the  Moors 
of  Spain  that  the  Dutch  obtained  their  start  in  tile 
making,  an  art  in  which  they  have  excelled.  Ger- 
mans from  the  Rhine  provinces  brought  this  art  of 
tile  making  in  the  eighteenth  century  to  Pennsyl- 
vania, where  it  was  then  lost,  and  only  revived 
within  a  few  years  by  Mr.  Henry  C.  Mercer,  of 
Doylestown,  Pennsylvania — a  curious  instance  of 
the  wandering  of  arts. 

A  noticeable  feature  of  Arab  buildings  is  their 
coolness  in  hot  weather.  They  are  built  with  thick 
walls,  and  to  enter  one  on  a  warm  day  is  almost  like 
going  into  a  cellar.  This  comes  because,  doubtless 
unconsciously  on  the  part  of  the  builders,  they  are 
built  something  like  a  glaciere,  with  an  opening  at 
the  top,  generally  over  a  court.  There  are  rather 
massive  doors  and  almost  no  windows.  The  re- 
sult is  that  the  cold  air  of  night  sinks  down  into  the 
rooms,  and  as  there  are  few  draughts,  the  hot  air  of 
the  daytime  floats  above  and  does  not  displace  the 
cold  air  which  remains  in  the  house  because  of  its 
greater  weight.^^ 

If  the  Arabs  show  but  little  sense  of  form,  the 
sense  of  color  is  certainly  a  national  characteristic, 
for  in  the  thousands  of  native  costumes  one  sees  in 

^^  Edwin  Swift  Balch :  Glacier es  or  Freezing  Caverns,  Philadelphia, 
Allen,  Lane  &  Scott,  1900. 


ARAB   ART.  73 

Tunis  and  Algeria  the  colors  are  usually  pale  and  soft 
and  almost  never  glaring.  And  unconsciously  the 
men  drape  themselves  as  beautifully  as  Greek 
statues.  This  can  hardly  be  said  of  the  women's 
clothes,  however,  which  seem  to  be  made  purposely 
with  as  ugly  lines  as  possible. 

Arab  art  spread  far  and  wide  from  its  starting 
point.  It  went  all  over  North  Africa  to  Morocco, 
and  thence  into  Spain,  where  it  left  the  splendid 
remains  of  the  Alhambra  and  the  great  Mosque  at 
Cordova.  It  spread  eastward  into  Persia  and  thence 
into  Hindtistan  and  into  Turkestan,  to  Khiva,  Bok- 
hara and  Samarkand.  There  is  some  of  it  in  Russia, 
since  there  is  an  interesting,  if  plain,  mosque  at 
Nijni-Novgorod.  The  Spaniards  naturally  adopted 
Arab  art  to  a  certain  extent,  and  took  it  over  with 
them  to  Mexico,  and  even  to-day,  in  New  York  and 
Florida,  and  Paris  and  London,  there  are  structures 
and  rooms  whose  architecture  or  whose  decora- 
tions are  taken  directly  from  the  art  devised  by  the 
Arabs  as  a  result  of  the  behests  of  Muhammed.^^ 
African  Art. 

All  over  Africa,  practically,  south  of  the  Sdhara,^® 
one  finds  an  art  which  is  certainly  independent  of 

^^  Eugene  Fromentin  :  Une  Annee  dans  le  Sahel.  Un  Ete  dans  le 
Sahara.  These  two  books  are  gems  of  literature,  both  as  narratives 
of  travel  and  as  criticisms  of  the  fine  arts. 

R.  Talbot  Kelly:   Egypt,  Painted  and  Described,  1902. 

^'' The  name  Sahara,  is  pronounced  with  the  three  "a's"  broad,  as 
in  "all"  or  "art."  The  first  and  third  "a"  are  long,  the  second 
"a"  is  very  short.      The  English  pronunciation  is  entirely  wrong. 


74  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

Kaldean,  Egyptian  or  East  Asiatic  art.  This  may 
be  called  African  art.  The  specimens  of  this  art 
which  I  have  seen  from  Lagos,  Dahomey,  Ashantee, 
the  Kongo,  Bechuanaland,  Matabeleland,  Lake 
Mweru,  Lake  Bangweolo,  and  Uganda,  are  mostly 
wooden  sculptures  of  a  recent  date.  They  are 
characterized  by  their  big  heads,  small  bodies,  tiny 
legs,  and  the  exaggeration  of  the  salient  points  of 
the  anatomy. 

From  Ashantee^^  there  are  some  remarkable  wooden 
figures,  from  about  thirty  centimeters  to  one  meter 
high.  They  are  dead  black,  thin  and  perfectly 
straight.  Their  proportions  are  all  wrong,  the  necks, 
for  instance,  being  immensely  and  absurdly  long. 
Some  of  the  heads,  on  the  contrary,  render  features 
and  expression  forcibly. 

From  Dahomey,  Lagos  and  other  parts  of  the 
west  coast  of  Africa  there  are  a  small  number  of 
figures  from  about  twenty  to  seventy-five  centi- 
meters high.^°  These  are  painted  over.  They  are 
evidently  recent,  and  certain  hats  and  clothes  on 
these  figures  show  that  they  date  since  the  advent  of 
Europeans.  Nevertheless,  they  have  the  chief  char- 
acteristics of  African  art,  such  as  big  heads  and 
dwarfed  legs,  while  the  prominent  parts  of  the 
anatomy  are  always  exaggerated.  These  figures  do 
not  resemble  the  art  of  Great  Benin,  and  it  is  curious 

^»  British  Mus. 
•"  British  Mus. 


AFRICAN    ART.  75 

that  at  Benin  some  semi-European  art  character- 
istics should  be  foimd,  while  in  the  surroimding 
parts  of  West  Africa,  even  where  Europeans  have 
traded,  African  characteristics  kept  to  the  fore. 

From  Sobo  Yakaba  and  other  places  in  the  lower 
Niger  country®^  there  are  some  interesting  if  hideous 
figures.  They  have  large  heads  and  short  legs,  and 
they  are  very  black,  with  white  and  red  eyes  and 
mouths. 

From  Yoruba  and  from  North  Nigeria^^  there 
are  some  door  posts  or  sticks  on  which  several  fig- 
ures are  carved  one  over  the  other.  There  is  an 
apparent  similarity  in  the  art  idea,  but  practically 
none  in  the  technic,  between  these  posts  and  Alaska 
totem  poles. 

From  the  upper  Kongo®^  come  some  rough  wooden 
figures  from  about  twenty  centimeters  to  one  meter 
high.  The  head  is  usually  disproportionately  large. 
The  eyes  are  sometimes  set  in  or  painted.  The 
legs  are  much  too  small. 

Among  some  specimens®*  obtained  from  the  natives 
of  the  lower  Kongo  are  some  elephants'  tusks, 
with  animals,  birds  and  humans  carved  on  them. 
These  are  modem,  as  shown  by  some  buttons  on 
a  waistcoat.  The  bodies  of  these  himians  are  small 
as    compared    to    the    head.     Some    ugly    wooden 

'*  British  Mus. 

«2  British  Mus. 

'^  British  Mus.     Bantu  tribes:  iron  workers. 

"  Carnegie  Mus.,  Pittsburg.     Collected  by  Mr.  Walter  Karl. 


76  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

figtires  from  the  lower  Kongo,  also  have  enormous 
heads  and  small  bodies;  the  eyes  are  white  with 
black  pupils.  These  Kongo  natives  have  some 
glimmering  notions  of  art,  but  the  relation  between 
body  and  head  is  remarkable. 

From  Lake  Mweru®^  there  are  some  curious  stools 
in  which  a  woman  with  a  big  head  supports  the 
seat.     These  are  rather  grotesque. 

From  the  Zulus^®  there  are  a  few  poorly  done 
small  wooden  figures. 

From  Mashonaland^^  come  some  instruments  with 
pattern  markings. 

From  the  Orange  Free  State  there  is  a  wooden 
figure, ^^  tinted  red  and  black,  which  has  a  large 
head  and  small  body,  but  the  proportions  are  less 
extreme  than  in  figures  from  the  Kongo. 

From  Uganda®^  I  have  seen  no  art  work  except 
some  pottery  with  a  few  decorative  lines.  Some 
illustrations, ''^  however,  show  that  the  Baganda  and 
the  Hima  make  some  rather  elaborately  decorated 
pottery. 

From  Abyssinia''^  I  have  seen  only  a  little  deco- 
rative art. 

From  Benin  City  come  some  extraordinary  bronze 

®5  British  Mus. 

'*  British  Mus.     The  Zulus  are  said  to  be  Bantu  or  Negro-Hamitic. 

«7  British  Mus. 

**  Carnegie  Mus.,  Pittsburg,     Loaned  by  Mr.  Bernard  Lepper,  1903. 

"'  British  Mus.    The  Baganda  are  said  to  be  Bantu  or  Negro-Hamitic. 

'"  Sir  Harry  Johnston:    The  Uganda  Protectorate,  1902. 

'*  British  Mus. 


AFRICAN   ART.  77 

castings/^  They  are  usually  plaques,  from  about 
thirty  to  seventy-five  centimeters  high,  with  from 
one  to  seven  figures  on  each  plaque.  These  figures 
are,  in  almost  all  cases,  modelled  in  high  relief,  fvill 
face.  They  all  seem  to  have  on  helmets,  generally 
with  a  piece  going  over  the  chin,  and  they  wear  a 
sort  of  skirt.  The  features  are  native,  but  there  are 
a  few  plaques  representing  Europeans  in  costumes  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  The  proportions  of  these 
figures  are  better  than  in  the  case  of  most  African 
art,  nevertheless  the  bodies  and  legs  are  imdersized 
in  relation  to  the  heads.  There  are  also  some  high 
relief  castings  of  animals,  such  as  leopards,  croco- 
diles, fishes  and  snakes.  Besides  these  are  some 
sculptures,  not  on  panels,  of  cast  bronze.  One  or 
two  of  the  figures  are  good  and  show  fairly  good 
sciilpture;  a  large  chicken  is  well  observed  and 
modelled.  There  are  also  some  nicely  carved  ele- 
phants' tusks.  It  is  evident  that  there  was  Euro- 
pean influence  in  the  starting  of  this  art,  which  is 
sui  generis,  in  many  ways  imlike  other  African  art, 
and  interesting  in  showing  what  Africans  can  do 
artistically  when  started  in  an  art  which  is  not  in- 
stinctive to  them.^^ 

African  art,  in  one  instance,  has  wandered  across 
the   Atlantic   Ocean.     This   has   happened   in   the 


'^  British  Mus.     The  inhabitants  are  stated  to  be  pure  negroes, 
who  were  discovered  by  the  Portuguese  in  the  fifteenth  century. 
'^  H.  Ling  Roth:   Great  Benin,  its  customs,  arts  and  horrors,  1903. 


78  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

case  of  the  Republic  of  Haiti,  for  from  there  come 
two  rather  ancient  rough  wood  carvings/*  one  of 
two  figures,  about  forty  centimeters  high,  the  other 
of  one  figure,  about  seventy  centimeters  high.  These 
have  the  characteristics  of  African  art,  and  their 
parentage  is  self-evident. 

Zimbabwe   Art. 

There  are  some  remains  in  Abyssinia,  principally 
megaliths,  and  in  Southeast  Africa  a  certain  num- 
ber of  towns  and  fortresses,  with  megaliths  and 
some  art  works,  about  whose  origin  there  is  much 
diversity  of  opinion. 

The  biggest  of  these  ruins  is  Zimbabwe,  which 
was  reported  by  Portuguese  already  in  the  six- 
teenth century.  Illustrations  of  Zimbabwe  show 
massive  walls,  a  nimiber  of  monoliths  and  meg- 
alithic  stones,  and  a  good  deal  of  a  rough  kind  of 
art.  The  best  relics  of  this  art  are  big  birds  which 
are  carved  sitting  on  the  tops  of  soapstone  beams. 
They  are  rather  large,  about  a  meter  and  a  half 
high,  and  generally  represent  eagles  or  vultures 
which  are  decidedly  conventional  in  design  and 
poor  representations  of  nature. 

Some  of  the  travellers  who  have  examined  Zim- 
babwe incline  to  the  opinion  that  the  remains  were 
built  by  ancestors  of  the  tribes  still  living  in  the 
coimtry.     Others  think  that  the  builders  of  Zim- 

''*  Smithsonian  Inst. 


ZIMBABWE    ART.  7f 

babwe  came  from  a  northern  stock,  and  that  they 
were  related  to  the  Phenicians,  Egyptians  and 
Arabs. 

The  big  birds,  however,  seem  to  ehminate  an 
Arab  origin,  as  the  Arabs  did  not  model  animals. 
The  illustrations  published  of  them  also  are.  not 
siifficient  to  decide  whether  they  really  resemble  any 
Egyptian  or  Phenician  work.  Nor  do  they  appear 
to  resemble  average  South  African  art  specimens. 
The  Bushmen  and  the  natives  of  Benin  City,  how- 
ever, could  do  as  good  and  even  better  art  work. 

Not  having  seen  any  original  specimens  from 
Zimbabwe,  I  feel  I  can  only  give  the  problem, 
namely  that  its  builders  may  have  been  of  Phe- 
nician or  Egyptian  stock,  or  that  some  South  African 
tribe  may  have  temporarily  advanced  into  an  im- 
usual  state  of  social  organization  and  later  retro- 
graded therefrom,  and  state  that  my  own  opinion  is 
in  favor  of  the  latter  theory.^® 

Bushman  Art. 
In  various  places  in  Africa,  principally  south  of 
the  Zambezi,  art  works,  paintings,  sctilptures,  and 
bas  reliefs,  have  been  found,  which  are  the  work 

""^  Dr.  O.  Dapper:    Beschreibung  von  Africa   "  Map,"  Amsterdam, 
Jacob  van  Meiirs,  MDCLXX. 

J.  Theodore  Bent:  The  Sacred  City  of  the  Ethiopians,  1893. 
J.  Theodore  Bent:  The  Ruined  Cities  of  Mashonaland,  1892. 
P.  C.  Selous:   Travels  and  Adventures  in  South-east  Africa,  1893. 
R.  N.  Hall:  Great  Zimbabwe,  Mashonaland,  Rhodesia,  1905. 
David  Randall  Maclver:  Mediaeval  Rhodesia,  1906. 


80  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

of  the  interesting  and  now  almost  extinct  race  of 
the  Bushmen.  I  have  myself  seen  only  two  or 
three  little  original  specimens  of  this  art/^  not 
enough  to  form  a  reliable  opinion.  They  have 
some  resemblance  to  Pleistokene  and  Eskimo  draw- 
ings. 

Some  illustrations  of  their  paintings  or  engrav- 
ings on  rocks,  however,  have  been  published,  which 
enable  one  to  form  an  opinion  at  second  hand.'^^ 
The  colored  illustrations  published  in  Mr.  Stow's 
book  are  probably  the  best  accessible  reproductions 
of  Bushman  art,  and  of  these,  the  plates  repre- 
senting "Ostrich  hunting,"  "Hippopotamus  and 
gnus,"  "Elands  hunted  by  lions,"  are  the  most 
remarkable  examples. 

Bushman  art  works  represent  various  wild  ani- 
mals, such  as  elephants,  buffaloes,  antelopes,  ant- 
bears,  apes,  ostriches,  and  some  humans.  In  the 
reproductions  the  paintings  look  like  flat  wash 
drawings.  They  show  observation,  action,  spirit, 
some  pictorial  composition,  some  good  drawing, 
and  some  observation  of  local  color.  They  give 
decidedly  the  character  of  the  men  and  of  the  ani- 
mals, and  as  usual  with  primitive  races,  the  animals 

'*  British  Mus. :  some  models  of  Bushmen  have  negroid  features 
and  yellowish  skins. 

'^  J.  Theodore  Bent:  The  Ruined  Cities  of  Mashonaland,   1892. 
F.  C.  Selous:    Travels  and  Adventures  in  South-east  Africa,  1893. 
Sir  Charles  Warren:  On  the  Veldt  in  the  Seventies,  1902. 
George  W.  Stow:    The  Native  Races  of  Souih  Africa,  edited  by 
George  McCall  Theal,  1905. 


BUSHMAN    ART.  81 

are  better  drawn  than  the  men.  The  legs  of  the 
animals  are  apt  to  be  only  partly  drawn,  and  this 
may  be  due  to  the  legs  being  concealed  by  the  herb- 
age when  the  animals  were  in  sight  of  the  artist. 
There  is  a  strong  feeling  for  form  and  action,  and 
a  little  modelling.  The  drawings  show  observa- 
tion and  memory;  they  are  simple  and  show  that 
the  artists  were  impressed  with  the  animals  and 
hunting  scenes  they  saw,  and  that  they  tried  to 
record  their  impressions.  Some  of  the  illustrations 
of  Bushman  art  show  a  distinct  idea  of  making  a 
picture.  The  "  Ostriches  "  from  a  cave  in  the  Her- 
schel  district'^^  has  some  idea  of  a  rough  perspec- 
tive, while  that  as  well  as  the  picture  of  elands, ^^ 
have  a  distinct  similarity  to  Japanese  work.  There 
is  also  an  attempt  at  picture  making  in  some  scenes 
where  the  men  are  represented  as  trying  to'  drive 
off  their  neighbors'  cattle. 

While  the  animals  are  entirely  different  from  those 
represented  by  Pleistokene  or  Eskimo  artists,  the 
style  of  Bushman  work  has  unquestionably  much 
resemblance  to  that  of  Pleistokene  work  and  some 
resemblance  to  that  of  Eskimo  work.  It  certainly 
has  no  resemblance  to  African  art.  This  is  partic- 
ularly exemplified  in  Bushman  htmians,  in  which 
the  proportions  are  fairly  accurate.  The  heads 
are  noticeably  small,  a  characteristic  never  found 

'*  The  Native  Races  of  South  Africa,  page  82. 
"  The  Native  Races  of  South  Africa,  page  172. 


82  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

in  Negro  work.  The  hips,  buttocks,  and  calves 
are  highly  accentuated. 

The  Bushmen  depended  upon  disguises  and  cau- 
tious approach  to  get  near  their  game,  and  upon 
poisoned  arrows  to  kill  it.  In  their  pictures  they 
represented  often  huntsmen  and  warriors  using  dis- 
guises of  the  skins  and  horns  of  animals,  like  ante- 
lopes or  zebras,  or  the  head  and  wings  and  feathers 
of  birds,  such  as  vultures  or  ostriches,  when  hunting. 
These  were  representations  of  fact  and  not  symbols 
with  them,  but  such  hunting  disguises  may  have 
been  the  origin  of  many  of  the  bull,  eagle,  lion  and 
other  animal  headed  figures  which  were  developed 
principally  among  the  Egyptians.^^ 

As  many  as  five  distinct  series  of  paintings,  one 
over  the  other,  were  found  at  a  rock  shelter  on  the 
banks  of  the  Imvani  river  in  South  Africa.^^  Old 
Bushmen  asserted  that  the  productions  of  an  artist 
were  always  respected  as  long  as  any  recollection 
of  him  was  preserved  in  his  tribe;  but  when  his 
memory  was  forgotten,  another  painter  appropri- 
ated the  limited  rock  surface  of  the  shelter  for  his 
own  efforts.  This  would  allow  perhaps  five  hun- 
dred years  to  the  underlying  painting  in  the  Imvani 
rock  shelter.  There  are  similar  overlying  layers  of 
paintings  in  the  Pleistokene  caves  of  France;  these 
are  probably  due  to  the  same  causes,   and  these 

*"  The  Native  Races  of  South  Africa. 

^^  The  Native  Races  of  South  Africa,  page  26. 


BUSHMAN   ART.  83 

facts  might  be  adduced  as  evidence  that  the  Pleisto- 
kenes  were  the  ancestors  of  the  Bushmen. 

The  Bushmen  do  not  appear  to  have  destroyed 
sculptured   rocks,    in    the  same   way  as  they   did 
paintings,  by  placing  other  sculptures   over  them. 
Some   of    these   sculptures  are    certainly   old    and  I 
from    some    cracks  and   wearing  of   the   rocks    on  | 
which  they  are  done,  they   may   be   estimated  as  ! 
dating  from  several  thousand  years  ago.^^ 

There  is  much  evidence  that  the  Bushmen  were 
in  South  Africa  thousands  of  years  back;  that  they 
probably  came  from  the  north;  that  they  have 
some  Mongolian  characteristics;  that  they  were 
gradually  hemmed  in  and  crushed,  first  by  an  in- 
vasion of  black  races  from  the  north,  and  then  by  a 
white  invasion  from  the  south.^^  It  seems  not  im- 
possible that  the  Pleistokenes  were  wiped  out  in  a 
similar  manner  by  some  succeeding  race  in  Europe. 
It  seems  possible  that  the  Central  African  pygmies 
are  a  remnant  of  the  Bushman  race  which  did  not 
advance  to  the  south.  It  is  said  that  these  pyg- 
mies have  a  good  idea  of  drawing,  and  that  with  a 
sharpened  stick  they  can  delineate  in  the  sand  and 
mud  the  beasts  and  some  of  the  birds  with  which 
they  are  familiar.®* 

It  may  be,  of  course,  that  living  in  savagedom  by 

**  The  Native  Races  of  South  Africa. 
*'  The  Native  Races  of  South  Africa. 
^*  Sir  Harry  Johnston:  The  Uganda  Protectorate,  1902. 


84  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

hunting,  under  somewhat  similar  conditions  of  exist- 
ence, similar  art  ideas  may  spring  up  in  different 
races,  and  it  may  be,  therefore,  that  Bushman  art 
is  purely  autochthonous.  Still,  there  is  nothing 
in  their  arts  which  militate  against  the  view  that  the 
Pleistokenes,  Bushmen  and  Eskimo  were  the  same 
people;  on  the  contrary,  the  art  evidences  favor 
such  a  belief.  Since  it  seems  established  that  the 
Bushmen  were  early  inhabitants  of  South  Africa,  it 
seems  to  me  that  the  Bushmen  may  well  be  a 
remnant  of  the  race  which  left  the  paintings  in  the 
caves  of  France,  and  that  they  may  have  migrated 
thru  North  Africa  and  the  Nile  Valley  at  some 
remote  period,  while  another  tribe  of  the  Pleistokene 
race  may  have  wandered  north  and  still  inhabit  the 
shores  of  the  Arctic  Ocean.  If  this  is  so,  the 
Bushmen  and  the  Eskimo  are  the  living  representa- 
tives of  the  earliest  race  known  to  us. 

Kaldean  Art. 

Some  thousands  of  years  ago,  a  people,  in  a  state 
of  advanced  social  organization,  dwelt  for  a  long 
time  on  the  plains  across  which  the  Euphrates  and 
the  Tigris  find  their  way  to  the  Persian  Gulf.  In 
this  country,  which  we  call  Kaldea,  some  art  grew 
up,  probably  about  or  before  5000  B.  C.  A  fragment 
supposed  to  date  from  this  time^^  would  lead  one  to 

*'  Univ.  of  Penna.  Mus.  Arch. 


KALDEAN    ART.  SS 

guess  that  Kaldean  art  was  at  first  possibly  a  kind 
of  picture  writing. 

There  are  some  remains  of  slabs  with  bas-reliefs, 
dating  supposedly  in  the  neighborhood  of  4000  B.  C, 
which  show  most  limited  knowledge  and  observa- 
tion, and  in  which  the  drawing  is  stiff  and  archaic. 
A  circular  bas-relief  antedating  King  Our-Nina,  in 
which  the  humans  have  shaved  heads  and  big 
noses,  is  also  not  impressive.  The  best  of  these 
early  bas-reliefs  perhaps  are  the  fragments  known  as 
the  Steele  of  Vultures  of  the  time  of  King  Eannadou, 
representing  the  celebration  of  some  victory.  The 
warriors  wear  helmets,  apparently  with  nose-pieces 
or  else  they  have  enormous  noses;  their  figures  are 
archaic  or  at  least  stiff,  and  the  artistic  conception 
resembles  the  later  Assyrian  work.  There  are  a 
nimiber  of  these  early  bas-reliefs  and  in  some  the  face 
is  drawn  full  or  nearly  full,  and  these  are  perhaps 
as  early  attempts  to  draw  the  full  face  as  there  are 
in  art.^ 

There  are  some  fine  examples  of  engravings  on 
metal  from  Kaldea.  The  best  is  the  splendid 
silver  vase  supposed  to  be  of  the  reign  of  King 
Entemena,  about  3950  B.  C.®^  It  has  four  lion 
headed  eagles,  also  deer,  decorative  lions  and 
ibexes;    the  lion  heads  of  the  eagles  are  full  face. 

The  interesting  thing  about  this  early  Kaldean 

**  Louvre.     Found  principally  by  Mens.  De  Sarzec. 
"^  Louvre. 


86  COMPARATIVE  ART. 

art,  from  the  standpoint  of  comparative  art,  is  that 
it  does  not  resemble  Chinese,  Japanese  or  Greek  art 
at  all  and  Egyptian  art  scarcely  at  all. 

With  a  jump  of  over  a  thousand  years  we  come  to 
some  most  remarkable  art.  These  are  the  black 
diorite  or  dolerite  statues^^  from  Tello  in  Kaldea, 
one  of  Our-Baou,  the  others  of  Goudea,  both 
patesis  or  rulers  of  Sirpoula.  They  are  assigned  to 
about  2700  B.  C.  There  are  ctmeiform  inscriptions 
on  some  of  them.  There  is  decided  realism  in  these 
large  statues  which  are  all  in  repose.  The  figures 
are  perhaps  rather  squat  and  not  sufficiently  slender 
in  their  proportions.  They  are  evidently  observed 
from  nature  and  certain  portions  are  carefully  studied 
out.  The  hands  have  long  slim  fingers,  the  skin 
around  the  base  of  the  toe  nails  is  indicated  and 
the  nails  are  cut  square  across,  as  some  surgeons 
contend  they  should  be.  How  the  originals  could 
have  kept  their  toe  nails  this  way  imless  they  had 
scissors,  is  hard  to  understand. 

Most  of  the  statues  have  had  the  head  broken  off. 
A  small  sitting  one,  however,  either  has  its  original 
head  or  one  has  been  fitted  to  it.  There  are  several 
separate  heads,  however.  The  eyebrows  meet  and 
their  hair  rises  to  a  ridge.  In  some  the  top  of  the 
head  is  covered  with  a  sort  of  superstructure  which 
is  supposed    by    some    archeologists  to  be  a    cap 

*'  Nine  in  the  Louvre.  One  in  the  British  Mus.  Found  by 
Mons.  De  Sarzec. 


KALDEAN   ART.  87 

or  turban.  In  fact  one  of  them  is  known  as 
the  Grande  tete  h  turban  de  Goudea.  Mrs.  Balch, 
however,  discovered  that  these  heads  are  not  wear- 
ing a  turban  at  all,  but  that  it  is  probably  the  hair, 
tight,  crisp  and  curly,  which  is  dressed  into  what 
looks  like  a  turban.  That  it  is  hair  may  be  inferred 
almost  surely  by  looking  at  the  Assyrian  bulls^^ 
along  whose  sides  hair  is  sculptured  in  precisely  the 
same  conventionalized  manner  as  the  hair  on  the 
heads  of  Goudea. 

These  statues  are  really  fine  and  show  marked 
observation,  knowledge  of  proportion  and  sculptural 
ability.  There  is  nothing  archaic  about  them. 
They  are  far  superior  to  any  Assyrian  work  and 
to  most  Egyptian  work,  and  my  opinion  is  that 
they  are  on  a  par  with  fine  Greek  sculpture.  There 
is  a  striking  resemblance  in  the  quiet  seated  pose  to 
many  Egyptian  statues,  and  also  to  the  great  seated 
Buddhas  of  Cochin  China,  China  and  Japan.  Yet  the 
artistic  handling  of  all  three  arts  is  sufficiently  dis- 
tinct to  point  to  a  certain  amount  at  least  of  au- 
tochthonous origin  for  each.  Can  it  be,  however,  that 
these  statues  come  from  some  earlier  parent  type,  now 
either  destroyed  or  imknown,  in  Central  Asia  or  India  ? 

From  approximately  the  same  time  there  are 
also  numerous  statuettes,  some  ot  stone,  some  of 
copper.^     Some  of  the  heads  are  shaved,  and  when 

"'  Louvre.     Dug  up  by  Mons.  P.  E.  Botta. 
•••  Louvre. 


8S  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

the  nose  is  intact  it  is  always  a  big  nose.  The 
type  of  all  these  heads  is  entirely  different  from 
those  of  Mexican  or  Peruvian  statuette  heads,  so 
different  in  fact  as  to  show  almost  positively  that 
the  races  must  be  different. 

A  small  vase  or  bowl  in  green  steatite,  with  seven 
small  figures  around  it,  is  most  original  art.  Some 
small  human  copper  figurines  are  not  bad  and  one  or 
two  have  a  lot  of  swing  and  action.  Several  of  them, 
who  appear  to  be  hanging  on  to  posts,  look  much 
like  German  gnomes.  Some  of  these  copper  figures 
are  greenish  and  are  all  eaten  away  with  verdigris. 
Some  small,  ill-done  statuettes  of  bulls  with 
human  heads,  a  few  good  animals,  notably  a  cast 
copper  bull's  head,  and  some  quaint  specimens 
of  decorative  art  are  interesting.  A  vase  of 
about  the  time  of  Goudea  which  has  two  fantastic 
animals,  one  on  each  side  of  a  pair  of  entwined 
snakes,  is,  as  far  as  I  know,  rather  unlike  the  art 
of  any  other  nation.  There  are  some  engrav- 
ings on  shells,  some  of  which,  notably  one  of  an 
ibex,  are  good.®^ 

There  are  also  some  terra  cotta  statuettes  from 
Kaldea.  Many  of  these  are  stiff  and  poor.  Some 
dating  from  about  2500  B.  C.  from  Niiffar®^  are 
somewhat  shapeless,   but   the   small   waist  of  the 

•*  These  are  all  in  the  Louvre. 

'^  Univ.  of  Penna.,  Mus.    Arch.     Dug  up  by  Prof.   Hilprecht  and 
Dr.  Peters. 


KALDEAN    ART.  89 

nude  females  is  exaggerated  to  an  unusual  degree 
for  such  early  art.  Some  small  nude  female  figures 
also^^  are  lying  on  their  left  side  with  their  right 
arm  on  their  right  hip  and  these  are  possibly  of  a 
later  date.  They  resemble  some  Etruscan  figures,®* 
and  I  am  inclined  to  think  the  latter  are  descended 
from  Kaldean  art. 

Later,  Kaldean  art  deteriorates  and  shows  out- 
side influences.  On  some  so-called  Jewish  incanta- 
tion bowls  of  the  ninth  and  eighth  centuries  B.  C.,®® 
the  figures  are  shapeless  and  grotesque. 

About  this  time,  the  Kaldeans  still  made  com- 
memorative slabs.  A  marble  tablet  of  King  Nabu- 
Apal-Iddina,  850  B.  C.?,^  represents  a  king  ap- 
proached by  three  men.  The  figtires  are  stiff,  ill 
drawn,  and  quite  unlike  the  art  of  the  Goudeas,  re- 
sembling, on  the  contrary,  exactly  early  Assyrian  art. 

From  the  latest  edifice  at  Nuffar  come  some  terra 
cottas  on  which  are  faces  and  figures  decidedly 
Greek  in  style. ®^  These  belong  to  a  Hellenistic  and 
Roman,  generally  known  as  Parthian,  period,  of  the 
last  three  or  four  centuries  B.  C,  which  shows  a  weld- 
ing of  Greco-Roman  and  Oriental  elements  and  a 
short  lived  new  civilization  and  art. 

'^  Louvre. 

'*  Museo  Nazionale,  Palermo. 

^^  Univ.  of  Penna.  Mus.  Arch.  Found  at  Nuffar  by  Prof.  Hil- 
precht. 

'*  British  Mus.     Found  by  Mr.  Rassam  at  Abu  Hadda. 

^'  Univ.  of  Penna.  Mus.  Arch.  Found  by  Prof.  Hilprecht  and 
Dr.  Peters. 


90  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

A  noteworthy  ethnological  point  in  Kaldean  art 
are  the  noses  in  the  bas-reliefs.  These  are  enormous. 
The  types  of  head  in  these  bas-reliefs  resemble  As- 
syrian art  types  and  Persian  art  types;  they  do  not 
much  resemble  Egyptian  art  types.  As  far  as  the 
faces  in  art  count  as  ethnological  evidence,  it  may 
be  looked  on  as  tolerably  certain  that  the  Kal- 
deans,  Assyrians  and  old  Persians  were  the  same 
race,  the  one  we  speak  of  ethnologically  as  Semitic, 
and  that  it  is  the  race  which  to-day  is  holding  its 
own  everywhere  under  its  other  name,  the  Jew. 
The  Kaldean  and  Assyrian  noses  in  the  bas-reliefs 
also  resemble  strongly,  altho  not  entirely,  the  noses 
of  some  Mexican  bas-reliefs.  Altho  there  is  prob- 
ably no  direct  relationship  between  these  races, 
yet  the  resemblance  is  noteworthy. 

On  the  whole,  I  cannot  see  any  real  resem- 
blance between  Kaldean  art  and  the  art  of  the 
Pleistokenes,  of  the  Greeks,  of  the  Hindus  or  of 
the  East  Asiatics,  and  this  leads  to  the  con- 
clusion that  probably  it  was  autochthonous.  It 
was  certainly  the  parent  of  Assyrian  art  and  old 
Persian  art,  at  least  partly  of  what  art  the  Phenic- 
ians  had,  and  therefore  perhaps  also  the  parent  of 
the  art  of  Zimbabwe,  and  for  the  same  reason, 
therefore,  it  probably  had  an  influence  at  Carthage 
and  in  Etruria.  It  looks  as  if  there  was  a  great 
art,  of  the  Semitic  or  Jewish  race,  which  sprang 
up  autochthonously  in  Kaldea  and  afterwards  de- 


ASSYRIAN    ART.  91 

generated  and  finally  died  out  under  less  congenial 

environment.®^ 

Assyrian  Art. 

The  northern  reaches  of  the  Euphrates  and  the 
Tigris  were  at  one  time,  about  1500  to  600  B.  C,  the 
home  of  the  warlike  Assyrian  nation.  Little  or 
nothing  remains  of  this,  however,  except  what  has 
come  down  to  us  of  their  art.  Most  of  this  is  in  the 
form  of  high  relief  slabs,  and  in  smaller  bits  of  sculp- 
ture in  the  roimd.^®  Assyrian  art  must  certainly  be 
a  descendant  of  Kaldean  art,  and  a  first  cousin  of 
Hittite  art.  It  has  a  slight  resemblance  to  Egyptian 
art  and  some  of  it  has  a  slight  resemblance  to  some 
Greek  art.  None  of  the  Assyrian  figures  Shows  as 
careful  observation  of  form  as  the  statues  of  Gou- 
dea.  In  fact,  all  the  Assyrian  high  reliefs  and  bas- 
reliefs  are  much  inferior  as  art  to  the  Goudeas,  altho 
they  are  more  spirited  and  pictorial  than  Babylo- 
nian slabs. 

The  earlier  Assyrian  art  is  stiffer  and  more  archaic  , 
than  the  later.  It  rises  to  its  height  towards  the ! 
eighth  and  seventh  centtiries,  B.  C,  and  then  gradu- 
ally dies  out.  There  is  plenty  of  life  and  action 
in  many  of  the  scenes  represented  on  slabs,  in 
which  a  considerable  facility  of  picture  making 
appears.     Many  of  these  represent  scenes  of  war 

"  L^on    Heiizey:     Catalogue    des   Antiquites    Chaldeennes,    Mus^e 
National  du  Louvre,  1902. 

H.  v.  Hilprecht:    Explorations  in  Bible  Lands,  Philadelphia,  1903. 
"  Louvre.     British  Mus.     Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 


92  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

and  fewer  represent  scenes  of  peace.  Hunting, 
especially  lion  hunting,  incidents  are  common.  In 
fact  the  inference  from  their  art  is  that  the  Assyr- 
ians were  a  militant  and  sporting  nation.  Not  all 
the  slabs,  however,  are  pictorial,  for  some  of  them, 
for  instance  some  bronze  panels  of  Shalmanezer 
II,  about  860-825  B.  C.,^°°  representing  events  in  the 
life  of  that  king,  are  rude,  more  like  rows  of  individ- 
ual figures,  than  like  pictures. 

The  human  faces  in  these  slabs  are  generally,  but 
not  always,  in  profile,  doubtless  because  a  profile  is 
easier  to  draw  than  a  full  face.  The  eye,  however, 
always  appears  "full  face"  which  points  to  Egyp- 
tian art  as  a  relation.  Most  of  the  Assyrian  faces 
are  of  a  strongly  Semitic  type.  Some  of  the  feet  of 
the  Assyrian  high  reliefs  are  excellent ;  most  are  bad. 
They  are  generally,  perhaps  always,  in  profile,  even 
when  the  figure  is  full  face.  Two  enormous  figures^^^ 
in  high  relief,  holding  big  cats,  possibly  cheetahs,  in 
their  arms,  show  this  peculiarity  most  forcibly.  A 
good  example  of  their  figures  is  a  fine,  over  life- 
sized  portrait  of  King  Asshumazirapal,  about  905- 
860  B.  C.,^°^  showing  his  side  face,  with  square  beard 
and  earrings;  it  is  decidedly  impressive,  even  if  the 
hands  are  pudgy  and  shapeless. 

The  animals  most  commonly  represented  in  As- 


loo  British  Mus.     Found  by  Mr.  Rassam. 

^"^  Louvre. 

^"^  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 


ASSYRIAN    ART.  93 

Syrian  art  are  the  lion  and  the  horse.  They  have 
many  of  the  characteristics  of  the  figures,  and  tho 
there  is  plenty  of  life  and  movement,  yet  the  ani- 
mals are  apt  to  be  rather  stiff  and  wooden.  This  is, 
for  instance,  the  case  in  two  slabs  of  "a  lion  hunt" 
and  "sacrifice  at  a  return  from  a  lion  hunt"  from 
Koyunjik,  dating  from  the  reign  of  Ashurbanapal, 
about  668-626  B.  C.  ;^°^  and  a  slab  "warrior  killing  a 
lion  "  from  Nimrud,  ninth  century. ^°^  In  most  of  the 
slabs  the  horses  have  their  long  tails  tied  or  boimd  in 
the  middle  by  an  encircling  band,  and  whenever  gal- 
loping horses  are  represented  they  have  the  incorrect 
action  of  opening  their  legs  like  scissors,  which  was 
in  vogue  in  Europe  in  the  nineteenth  century  until 
the  advent  of  instantaneous  photography.  This  is 
one  of  those  points  which  might  almost  be  called 
a  racial  characteristic,  as  one  does  not  find  it  in 
East  Asiatic  art. 

The  finest  example  of  pure  art  which  I  have  seen 
from   Assyria   also   comes   from   Koyxmjik   in   the 
seventh  century.     This  is  the  bas-relief  of  a  wounded 
lioness. -^^^     She  is  half  raised  from  the  ground  on 
which  her  paralyzed  hind   quarters   are   dragging, 
with  her  mouth  wide  open,  and  with  three  arrows 
in  her,  one  of  which  has  gone  clean  thru  and  is 
protruding   on    both   sides.      There   is   fine   draw- 
ls British  Mus. 
"^  British  Mus. 
"5  British  Mus.     Cast,  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 


94  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

ing,  composition,  expression,  action,  in  fact  it  is 
master's  work,  worthy  of  any  sculptor. 

Interesting  examples  of  Assyrian  art  are  the 
great  winged  bulls  from  the  palace  of  Sargon  at 
Khorsabad  of  the  eighth  century  B.  C}^  and  the 
enormous  human  headed  winged  lions  from  Nim- 
j^^  107  There  are  cuneiform  inscriptions  on  these 
and  they  all  have  pronounced  Semitic  type  heads. 
In  the  case  of  the  bulls,  the  horns  come  in  as  part 
of  the  headdress,  the  ribs  show  tmder  the  skin, 
and  in  places  they  have  curly  conventionalized  hair. 
In  these  figures  there  seems  to  be  a  connection 
with  the  Hindus,  in  their  animal  headed  statues  of 
Vishnu,  Ganesh,  etc.,  and  with  the  Egyptians,  when 
they  placed  the  heads  of  animals  on  a  human  body, 
or,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Sphinx,  a  human  head  on 
an  animal's  body. 

A  few  art  remains  have  been  found  in  Asia  Minor, 
Syria  and  Assyria,  which  are  attributed  to  the  Hit- 
tites,  the  supposed  ancestors  of  the  Armenians,  and 
which  are  believed  to  date  somewheres  between 
1500  B.  C.  and  700  B.  C.  I  have  not  seen  any 
originals  of  the  art  of  the  Hittites,  but  only  some 
casts  of  Hittite  slabs, ^°*  in  which  the  htmians  have 
enormous  noses.  These  slabs  are  distinctly  like  As- 
syrian   slabs,    only    rougher    and    more    shapeless. 


"«  Louvre.     Found  by  Mons,  P.  E.  Botta. 

^"^  British  Mus.     Found  by  Sir  Austen  Henry  Layard. 

"8  u.  S.  Nat.  Mus.,  Washington. 


PHENICIAN   ART.  95 

They  are  far  inferior  to  Kaldean  art,  and  the  art 
of  the  Hittites  is  really  probably  nothing  but  a 
rough  branch  of  Assyrian  art.^°^ 

Phenician  Art. 

During  the  last  two  millenniums  B.  C,  about  1500 
B.  C.  to  1  A.  D.,  some  men  whom  we  speak  of  as 
Phenicians  lived  on  the  eastern  and  southern  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean.  They  were  probably  early 
inhabitants  of  Syria  and  Palestine,  crossed  with 
some  Kaldeans  and  Assyrians,  and  by  some  emi- 
grants from  overfilled  Egypt  who  swarmed  north- 
ward into  Syria  and  westward  along  the  North 
African  coast.  As  far  as  I  know  they  did  not  de- 
velop any  special  art  of  their  own. 

From  somewhere  in  the  so-called  Phenicia,  prob- 
ably Syria,  comes  the  sarcophagus  believed  to  be 
that  of  Emunazar,  King  of  Sidon,  Phenicia,"^  and 
this  is  absolutely  Egyptian. 

From  Selinunte  in  Sicily  also  there  are  one  or 
two  sphinxes  with  wings,^"  Egyptian  or  Assyrian  in 
style,  showing  that  there  was  some  Egyptian  or 
Phenician  influence  there. 

Carthage,  however,  seems  to  be  the  most  im- 
portant relic  of  the  Phenicians.  While  its  later 
art  is  Greek  and  Roman,  some  of  the  specimens 

**"  H.  v.  Hilprecht:  Explorations  in  Bible  Lands,  Philadelphia, 
1903,  pages  753-793. 

^*"  Louvre.     Found  by  Mons.  P^r^tr^. 
m  Museo  Nazionale,  Palermo. 


96  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

have  an  Egyptian  quality.  It  is  not  easy,  however, 
to  tell  who  the  artists  were.  The  Phe  Blanc 
who  took  me  thru  the  Musee  Lavigerie  at  Car- 
thage, told  me  he  believed  the  earliest  race  in  Car- 
thage were  descendants  of  Shem  or  Turanians. 
This  is  in  touch  with  what  Professor  H.  V.  Hil- 
precht  told  me  he  thought  about  Babylonia,  namely, 
that  it  was  first  inhabited  by  a  yellow  race.  The 
Pere  Blanc  thought  the  Carthaginians  were  Phe- 
nicians,  descendants  of  Kaldeans,  not  Egyptians, 
and  their  worship  of  Baal  seems  to  point  to  this. 
None  of  the  art  of  Carthage  resembles  in  the 
slightest  East  Asiatic  art  or  African  art,  but  some 
few  implements  dug  up  are  similar  to  some  re- 
cently found  among  the  tribes  near  Lake  Tang- 
anika. 

Persian  Art. 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  art  in  Persia  during 
the  end  of  the  last  millennium  B.  C.  While  this 
Persian  art  may  have  developed  directly  from  Kal- 
dean  art,  it  more  closely  resembles  Assyrian  art. 
As  some  Persian  remains  are  supposed  to  date  back 
to  400  or  500  B.  C,  Persian  art,  therefore,  seems 
rather  like  a  cousin  than  a  descendant  of  Assyrian 
art. 

The  best  accessible  specimens  of  Persian  art  are 
now  in  Paris. "^  The  model  of  the  palace  or  temple 
of  Darius  at  Sousa,  about  404  B.C.,  shows  a  building 

"'^  Louvre.     Dug  up  by  Mons.  and  Mme.  Maurice  Dieulafoy. 


PERSIAN    ART.  97 

with  great  columns,  which  more  nearly  resembles 
an  Egyptian  than  a  Greek  temple.  On  some  of 
the  colimms  were  enormous  bulls'  heads.  The 
broken  pieces  of  the  top  of  one  of  these  columns 
have  been  put  together,  and  it  is  a  most  impressive 
piece  of  sculpture,  with  splendid  plastic  qualities. 
It  was  taken  from  the  Salle  du  trone  d'Artaxerses 
Mnemon,  There  was  a  sort  of  frieze,  the  Cou- 
ronnement  des  Pylones,  of  which  there  are  plaster 
cast  restorations.  This  had  on  it  fierce  lions  in 
colored  low  relief.  They  seem  to  be  made  out  of 
greenish  enamelled  bricks,  a  bit  of  the  animal  on 
each  brick,  and  they  are  so  well  joined  that  the 
artistic  effect  of  each  animal  is  fine.  The  old 
Persians  evidently  had  a  wholesome  respect  for 
the  lion,  for  their  artistic  counterfeits  are  anything 
but  meek.  Another  reproduction  is  given  of  a 
piece  of  another  frieze,  the  Frise  des  Archers, 
This  is  also  in  colored  low  relief,  made  apparently 
of  separate  enamelled  bricks,  in  which  a  bit  of  each 
figure  was  cast  or  moulded  with  each  brick,  and 
then  joined  together  with  wonderful  artistic  re- 
sults. The  predominant  colors  are  greens,  yellows, 
and  blues.  The  figures  represent  archers,  sculpted 
in  profile  and  the  appearance  of  the  men  is  strangely 
Assyrian. 

Some  tiles  from  Persia"^  have  almost  the  same 
colors  as  those  of  the  Bardo  at  Timis,  blue,  green, 

^^3  Louvre. 


98  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

yellow,  white  and  black.     I  do  not  know,  however, 
their  date. 

The  Persian  art  of  the  second  millennium  A.  D., 
is  evidently  White  man's  art,  and  is  closely  in  touch 
with  Hindu  art  of  two  or  three  centuries  ago.  Some 
small  Persian  pictures^^*  of  about  1600  A.  D.,  are  not 
unlike  those  of  the  Livre  des  Merveilles,  the  beau- 
tifully illuminated  Middle  Age  manuscript  in  the 
Biblioth^que  Nationale  in  Paris,  which  contains  the 
travels  of  Marco  Polo. 

South  Asiatic  Art. 
Hindustan. 

In  Southern  and  Eastern  Asia,  much  art  has  been 
produced,  which  is  more  or  less  the  same  art.  In  its 
western  habitat,  this  art  is  mainly  of  a  White  race 
type,  whilst  in  its  western  habitat,  it  is  largely  mixed 
with  a  Yellow  race  type.  It  seems  impossible  to 
say  whether  this  art  was  brought  from  more  northern 
latitudes  or  whether  it  originated  on  the  spot: 
most  probably  it  is  largely  autochthonous.  Hin- 
dustan is  the  main  center,  and  it  extends  into 
Afghanistan,  Ceylon,  Burma,  Siam,  Java,  Bali,  Tibet, 
and  under  Buddhistic  forms,  into  China,  Korea, 
and  Japan;  and  it  is  barely  possible  that  some  of 
it  travelled  further  into  Mexico. 

From  such  specimens  as  I  have  seen,  I  should  say 
that  Hindu  art  was  of  a  White  race,  not  a  Yellow 
race  type. 

^^*  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 


SOUTH   ASIATIC   ART.  99 

A  number  of  Hindu  statuettes,"®  incarnations  of 
Vishnu,  the  preserver,  principally  of  porcelain,  show 
distinctly  the  white  type  of  head.  The  proportions 
of  the  figures  are  fair.  One  of  the  incarnations, 
Narasimha  Avatar,  has  a  lion  head;  another, 
Ganesa,  God  of  Wisdom,  an  elephant  head.  Others 
have  the  Buddha  position,  with  the  soles  of  the  feet 
up.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  this  art  led  to  the  Bud- 
dhistic art  of  India,  Ceylon,  Cochin  China,  etc.  It 
does  not  suggest  Mexican  art  to  me.  The  eye  is  the 
European  eye.  Earrings  are  worn,  but  the  lobes  of 
the  ears  are  not  specially  big. 

The  lion  and  elephant  headed  figures  remind  one 
of  Assyrian  and  Persian  human  headed  animals, 
and  still  more  of  Egyptian  animal  headed  figures  and 
of  Bushmen  him  ting  disguises,  and  it  is  probable 
that  these  animal  headed  figures  sprang  from  the 
habit  of  hunters  of  covering  themselves  with  the 
skins  of  animals  and  birds  when  stalking  their  game. 

Some  photographs"^  and  some  lithographs"^  also ! 
show,  to  my  mind,  that  Hindu  art  must  be  one  of  : 
the  branches  of  White  man's  art.  The  observation 
is  poor  and  immature;  that  is,  for  instance,  the  an- 
atomy is  exaggerated  much  as  is  done  in  caricature ; 
the  hips  and  bosoms  of  the  women  are  enormous, 
while  the  waists  are  too  small.     Nevertheless,  altho 

""*  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 

**' James  Ferguson:  Tree  and  Serpent  Worship,  1868, 
^^' James  Ferguson:  Illustrations  of  the  Rock  Cut  Temples  of  India, 
1845. 


^ 


100  .COMPARATIVE   ART. 

showing  so  much  poor  technic,  yet  all  the  resem- 
blances of  the  figures  are  to  Whites,  not  to  Yellows 
or  Blacks.  Hindu  art  has  a  certain  resemblance  to 
Greek  and  Roman  art,  little  to  Chinese  or  Japanese, 
less  to  Egyptian  or  Assyrian,  and  almost  none  to 
African  or  Australasian  art.  The  heads  do  not  sug- 
gest Mexican  heads,  and  altho  there  is  a  wealth  of 
ornamentation,  as  there  is  in  Mexican  art,  still 
somehow  Hindu  ornamentation  does  not  look  to 
me  like  Mexican  ornamentation. 

A  reclining  Buddha  from  India^^of  porcelain,  about 
sixty  centimeters  long,  has  the  lengthened  ear,  but 
the  face  and  eye  are  of  European  type. 

In  another  respect,  some  Hindu  art  resembles 
European,  and  that  is  in  representing  the  galloping 
horse  with  its  legs  spread  out  like  a  pair  of  opened 
scissors.  Some  Hindu  pictures  certainly  have  this 
incorrect  action.  They  are  recent,  however,  and  it 
may  be  that  the  Hindu  artist  got  his  idea  from  Euro- 
pean models.  ^^® 

Some  of  this  Hindu  art  blossomed  as  the  result  of 
the  spread  of  the  Buddhist  religion,  and  as  this  sprang 
up  in  India,  it  points  to  India  as  the  immediate 
fountain  head  of  Buddhist  art.  The  religious 
beliefs  of  Buddhism  furnished  the  subjects,  and 
these  were  elaborated,  more  or  less  successfully  ac- 

"«  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 

*^'  Univ.  of  Penna.  Mus.  Arch.  Specimens  brought  from  Peshawur 
by  Prof.  Maxwell  Sommerville. 


SOUTH   ASIATIC   ART.  101 

cording  to  the  artistic  abilities  of  the  makers,  in 
the  different  regions  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Asia. 
Buddhist  art,  at  first,  could  only  have  been  a  devel- 
opment of  Hindu-Brahmanical  art.  As  it  naturally 
only  took  form  after  the  death  of  Siddartha  Gautama, 
the  Buddha,  and  as  the  most  authentic  records 
place  this  event  between  about  800  to  600  B.  C, 
Buddhist  art  cannot  be  older  than  that.  It  de- 
veloped principally  in  the  form  of  temples,  of 
statues  and  of  paintings,  much  as  did  the  art  of 
Europe  under  the  influence  of  Christianity,  and  just 
as  there  are  Christian  churches  wherever  Christianity 
has  gone,  so  there  are  Buddhistic  temples  in  almost 
all  the  countries  to  which  Buddhism  extended. 

Perhaps  the  most  widely  spread  form  of  Buddhist 
art  is  the  statues  of  the  Buddha.  As  a  rule,  they 
are  of  human  size,  and  are  placed  in  temples,  but 
some  of  them  are  colossal,  as,  for  instance,  at  Bamian 
in  Afghanistan,  half  way  between  Balkh  and  Cabul, 
where  five  great  statues  are  reported,  the  biggest  of 
which  is  about  sixty  meters  high.  Another  is  said 
to  exist  near  a  Jain  settlement  in  southern  India. 
There  is  a  huge  reclining  statue  of  the  Buddha  at 
Bangkok,  ^^°  which  is  entirely  covered  with  gold  leaf, 
and  the  immense  Daibutsz  near  Tokio  shows  the 
development  of  this  statue  in  Japan. 

The  seated   Buddhas  in  their  pose  remind  one 


'^"  Comte  de  Beauvoir:    Voyage  autour  du  Monde,  Paris,  1872. 


102  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

somewhat  of  the  black  dolerite  statues  of  Goudea 
from  Babylonia  and  some  of  the  seated  gods  of 
Egypt.  The  expression  of  the  faces  is  always 
placid,  and  a  noteworthy  feature  is  that  the  lobes  of 
the  ears  in  many  cases  are  lengthened  half  way  to  the 
shoulder,  a  characteristic  which  probably  originated 
in  Southern  Asia  or  in  China.  Several  suggestions 
have  been  made  as  to  why  the  lobes  of  the  ears  of 
the  Buddhas  are  so  elongated.  I  believe  that  the 
answer  is  simply  that  in  early  days  in  Eastern  Asia, 
many  men  probably  wore  heavy  earrings,  which  dis- 
tended and  lengthened  the  lobe  of  the  ears.  I  judge 
this  from  some  kakemonos  of  Ririomin^^^  of  about  the 
eleventh  century  A.  D.,  in  which  some  of  the  figures 
of  personages  round  the  Buddha  are  wearing  great 
earrings  and  have  elongated  lobes  as  well  as  him- 
self. These  great  elongated  ears  are  also  found  in 
some  of  the  statues  from  Rapa-Nui. 

Some  tribes  of  India  apparently  have  almost  no 
art.  From  Assam^^^  there  is  scarcely  anything  like 
art  work.  Of  the  Koonds  of  Orissa^^^  likewise 
there  is  no  art  work. 

Ceylon. 

The  art  of  Ceylon,  as  might  be  expected,  is  in  all 
respects  almost  the  same  as  the  art  of  India. 

A  statue  of  Vishnu  from  Ceylon^^^  is  colored  with 

*'*  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 

"2  British  Mus. 

»"  British  Mus.  .      . 

"*U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


SOUTH    ASIATIC   ART.  103 

bright  blues,  yellows,  and  reds.  It  is  at  least  two 
meters  high.  The  head  is  of  the  white  type,  it  has 
long  ears  with  big  earrings,  and  a  head  dress  resem- 
bling a  pagoda.     There  are  four  forearms  and  hands. 

A  seated  Buddha  from  Ceylon, ^^  some  two  meters 
high,  is  tinted  with  some  kind  of  bright,  waxy  looking 
yellow.  The  feet  are  twisted  into  a  seemingly  impos- 
sible position  with  the  soles  upwards  and  the  soles 
and  even  the  under  part  of  the  toes  have  small 
paintings  on  them.  The  lower  part  of  the  ear  is 
much  lengthened. 

From  Ceylon  also  come  some  hideous  masks  of 
which  I  have  seen  no  examples  coming  from  Hindu- 
stan. These  masks  are  said  to  be  Singhalese^^®  and 
they  strongly  resemble  some  of  the  work  made  in 
Java. 

Burma. 

Burmese  art  seems  to  be  a  cross  between  Hindu 
art  and  Chinese  art.  It  appears  to  be  derived  from 
Hindu  art,  with  an  admixture  of  Chinese  art,  that 
is  it  seems  to  be  the  art  of  a  White  race  modified 
by  the  art  of  a  Yellow  race.  This  is  apparent  in 
some  Buddhas  from  Burma^^^  which  have  some 
Hindu  characteristics  and  also  some  Chinese  char- 
acteristics.    All  the  Burmese  specimens  I  have  seen 

"5  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 

"*  British  Mus.     The  notice  says  the  Singhalese  came  to  Ceylon 
from  Bengal  about  the  sixth  century  B.  C. 
"^  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


104  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

are  Buddhistic,  so  they  cannot  be  more   than  two 
thousand  years  old. 

Siam. 

Man  has  certainly  dwelt  in  Cochin  China  from 
far  back,  judging  by  some  implements  taken  from 
shell  heaps  near  Lake  Ton-le-Sap,  in  Cambodia.^^^ 
There  were  three  strata :  the  upper  contained  bronze 
implements ;  the  middle,  bronze  and  polished  stone 
implements ;  the  lowest,  polished  stone  implements. 
The  lowest  stratum  is  certainly  many  thousand 
years  old. 

Siamese  art  seems  to  be  derived  mainly  from 
Hindu  art  with  an  admixture  of  Chinese  art.  Some 
Siamese  theatrical  masks^^^  are  painted  emerald  green 
and  gilt,  Indian  red  and  gilt.  A  wooden  statue  of  a 
gong  beater  from  a  temple  in  Siam^^*'  has  a  face  which 
strongly  resembles  these  theatrical  masks.  These 
Siamese  theatrical  masks  are  distinctly  local  and 
individual,  yet  whilst  sui  generis,  there  is  clearly 
Chinese  as  well  as  Hindu  influence  in  them.  They 
seem  to  be  a  combination  of  two  forces. 

Java. 

Javanese  art  is  one  phase  of  South  Asiatic  art, 
and  it  is  evidently  derived  from  India  and  Cochin 
China.  Some  of  it  is  individual  enough  to  show 
that  it  must  have  grown  up  largely  on  the  spot  from 

"*  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.     Found  by  Prof.  L.  H.  Jammes. 
"»  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 
i3»  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


SOUTH    ASIATIC    ART.  105 

racial  characteristics,  altho,  as  the  specimens  are 
of  comparatively  recent  date,  they  are  evidently 
only  adaptations,  and  not  in  the  least  autochthonous. 

From  Java  there  are  many  hideous  masks^^^ 
painted  in  crude  colors,  which  entirely  resemble  the 
masks  of  the  Singhalese  from  Ceylon.  There  are 
also  some  queer  grotesque  highly  colored  and  gilt 
figures, ^^^  on  the  average  some  thirty  to  fifty  cen- 
timeters high.  Two  similar  figures  from  the  Island 
of  Lombok,  show  that  the  makers  of  this  art  spread 
to  some  other  places  than  Java. 

Buddhism  also  brought  a  wave  of  art  to  Java, 
and  left  its  mark  in  some  Buddhistic  temples. 
Some  half  tones^^^  show  the  temples  of  Boro-Boedoer 
and  Prambanan  in  the  center  of  Java  to  be  some- 
what pyramidal  in  form.  Boro-Boedoer  was  built, 
it  is  believed,  about  the  eighth  or  ninth  century 
A.  D.  It  consists  of  a  number  of  terraces,  rising 
one  above  the  other  to  a  height  of  thirty-five  meters 
and  it  contains  a  number  of  seated  Buddhas  and 
no  less  than  fifteen  hundred  and  four  bas-reliefs. 
Prambanan  consists  of  a  number  of  smaller  temples 
together,  and  here  also  are  many  splendid  bas-re- 
liefs of  subjects  in  Hindu  mythology.  Hindu  Bud- 
dhistic art,   however,  travelled  beyond  Java  as  is 


"*  British  Mus. 

^^^  British  Mus.     Louvre,  Mus.  de  Marine. 

^^^  J.  F.  van  Bemmelen  and  G.  B.  Hooyer:  Guide  through  Nethef' 
lands  India,  1903,  pages  64-72. 


106  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

shown  by  an  illiigtration^^*  of  a  Buddhistic  temple 
on  the  Island  of  Bali. 

It  is  rather  curious  that  Javanese  art  has  no  ap- 
parent connection  with  Australasian  art,  especially 
as  the  art  of  the  more  western  island  Sumatra 
is  clearly  Australasian.  Sumatra  is,  of  course, 
still  much  more  primitive  than  Java,  and  it  may 
be  that  Java  once  belonged  to  the  Australasian 
group,  and  that  its  earlier  art  has  been  replaced  by 
South  Asian  art. 

Tibet. 

Tibetan  art  appears  to  come  from  both  Hindu 
art  and  Chinese  art.  Some  gilt  brass  or  gilt  bronze 
little  seated  figures  from  Kumbum,  Tibet,^^^  are  dis- 
tinctly of  the  White  race  type.  Two  of  these  fig- 
ures are  of  Tamdrin  or  Hayaguia.  These  have  six 
arms  and  three  eyes  apiece,  and  the  facial  expres- 
sion is  fierce.  These  would  show  that  Hindu  art 
crossed  the  Himalayas^^®  into  Tibet.  A  few  of  these 
little  gilt  figures  suggest  the  Buddha  with  a  Mongol 
face,  showing  a  Chinese  influence.  It  seems  pos- 
sible that  Hindu  art  and  Chinese  art  met  on  the 
Tibetan  plateau,  and  were  modified  somewhat  by 
the  local  environing  type  of  people. 


^^*  Guide  through  Netherlands  India,  page  188. 

135  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.     Collected  by  W.  W.  RockhiU. 

13®  The  name  Himalaya  is  a  contraction  of  Hima-Alaya,  meaning 
The  Abode  of  Snow.  The  accent  comes  on  the  first  a.  The  English 
mispronunciation  is  hopelessly  incorrect. 


east  asiatic  art.  107 

East  Asiatic  Art. 

In  the  central  eastern  half  of  the  Asiatic  con- 
tinent, in  China  and  Japan,  much  art  has  been  pro- 
duced. Some  of  it  is  wonderful,  some  is  beautiful, 
some  is  commonplace,  some  is  ugly,  but  almost  all 
of  it  is  interesting.  As  a  rule  it  is  different  from 
Aryan,  Semitic,  African,  or  Amerind  art,  in  fact, 
some  of  it  seems  almost  as  if  it  might  have  come 
from  another  planet.  In  their  vital  characteristics, 
the  arts  of  China  and  Japan  are  decidedly  similar. 
There  are  differences,  of  course,  but  these  seem 
due  as  much  to  individuals,  to  epochs,  or  to  local 
environments,  as  to  separate  racial  peculiarities. 
Whether  the  people  of  China  and  Japan  come  from 
the  same  stock  or  from  different  stocks,  it  is  certain 
that  their  art  is  closely  akin.  And  the  evidences 
of  art  would  go  to  show  that  the  Chinese  and  Jap- 
anese are  a  different  people  in  the  main  from  the 
Aryans  and  Semites,  from  the  Afro- Australasians,  • 
and  from  the  Amerinds.^*^ 

I  am  perhaps  all  wrong  in  my  belief,  but  to  the 
best  of  my  judgment,  there  are  two  arts,  often 
blended,  in  East  Asia,  one  of  which  is  great  and  is 
probably  autochthonous;  while  the  other,  Buddhist 
art,  almost  surely  comes  from  Southeast  Asia,  and 
is  often  decidedly  poor  art. 

*^'  This  chapter  is  developed  from  a  lecture  on  Japanese  painting 
which  I  delivered  before  the  Geographical  Club  of  Philadelphia,  in 
the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  at  Philadelphia,  on  February  7, 
1894. 


108  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

Japanese  art  almost  surely  came  mainly  from  China . 
It  is  known  that  there  were  several  waves  in  the  art 
of  Japan,  and  that  it  changed  and  progressed  and 
retrograded  at  different  times.  There  were  several 
so-called  schools  of  art  in  Japan,  the  Kano,  the 
Tosa,  the  Ukioye,  and  others,  all  varying  from  one 
another,  altho  in  the  main  following  similar  art 
canons.  Japanese  art  extends  back  thru  many 
centuries.  In  the  fifteenth  century  A.  D.,  for  in- 
stance, we  find  Sesshiu,  in  some  respects  the  greatest 
painter  of  Japan.  In  the  twelfth  century  A.  D., 
the  Buddhist  school  was  in  blossom  already,  and 
there  are  said  to  be  historical  documents  which  in- 
dicate that  Buddhist  art  came  to  Japan  from  China  / 
somewhere  about  the  fifth  century  A.  D, 

There  is  some  Japanese  art,  however,  such  as  cer- 
tain small,  grotesque  figures,  which,  to  my  mind 
at  least,  has  a  strong  resemblance  to  some  Austral- 
asian art.  It  may  be  fancy,  but  it  seems  to  me  that 
there  must  have  been  blood  relationship  between 
some  of  the  artists  of  Rapa-Nui,  of  Hawaii,  of  New 
2^aland,  and  those  of  Zipangu,  for  certainly  some 
of  their  productions  have  a  family  resemblance. 

The  Koreans  also  sculpt  some  curious  wooden 
figures.  The  only  one  I  have  seen^^^  is  some  two 
meters  high,  and  has  a  small  grotesque  body,  and  a 
big  hideous  head,  whose  eyes  have  an  oblique  Mongol 
cast.     When  complete  these  images  wear  a  hat,  as 

"»  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


EAST   ASIATIC   ART.  109 

do  the  Rapa-Nm  figures:  they  are  sometimes  used 
as  guide  posts  and  are  set  up  along  roads.  An 
engraving  entitled  "A  Japanese  Tam  O'Shanter"^^^ 
shows  a  Japanese  army  officer  riding  past  six  of  these 
poles,  whose  tops  are  carved  into  hideous  grinning 
heads.  Underneath  the  engraving  is  printed,  "  These 
extraordinary  carved  figures  are  a  striking  feature  in 
the  landscape  on  the  outskirts  of  villages  in  Korea. 
They  are  supposed  to  be  able  to  frighten  away  evil 
spirits."  The  horseman's  figure  shows  these  poles 
to  be  some  two  or  three  meters  high. 

The  artistic  resemblance  of  these  Korean  guide  ' 
posts  to  Rapa-Nui  statues,  to  Borneo  funeral 
poles,  and  to  Alaska  totem  poles  is  immistakable 
and  would  imply  some  similar  art  impulse  or  motive, 
even  tho  the  object  aimed  at  in  erecting  these  poles 
is  different  in  all  four  places. 

Of  Chinese  art  we  know  less  than  of  Japanese 
and  how  far  back  it  goes  is  unknown.  There  were 
great  Chinese  artists  during  both  the  Ming  and  the 
Sung  Dynasties,  and  one  of  their  greatest  painters, 
Kose-No-Kanaoka,  flourished  about  the  ninth  cen- 
tury A.  D.  But  as  it  is  almost  certain  that  Bud- 
dhist art  came  to  Japan  from  China  about  the  fifth 
century  A.  D.,  it  stands  to  reason  that  art  must  have 
existed  in  China  well  before  that  and  it  doubtless 
antedates  the  Christian  era,  possibly  by  many  cen- 
turies.    Some  persons  claim  that  art  came  to  China 

"9  The  Booklovers'  Magazine,  July,  1904,  Vol.  LV.,  No.  1,  page  122. 


110  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

from  India  and  this  in  turn  from  Afghanistan,  Persia, 
and  Greece,  perhaps  as  an  accompaniment  to  the 
conquests  of  Alexander. ^^  This  view  I  cannot  accept, 
for  in  the  first  place  Chinese  art  is  probably  as  old  or 
older  than  Greek  art,  and  also  for  the  reason  that 
East  Asiatic  art  seems  to  me  radically  different  from 
Greek  art.  A  good  deal  of  Chinese  art  is  Buddhistic 
and  this  undoubtedly  comes  from  India  thru 
Burma  and  Siam.  There  is  certainly  a  near  kin- 
ship between  the  great  Buddhas  of  Ceylon,  Siam, 
China  and  Japan.  But  I  noticed  in  the  case  of  two 
small  statues^^^  of  lacquered  wood,  about  fifty  centi- 
meters high  each,  one  of  Kwanti,  Chinese  god  of  war, 
and  another  of  the  Chinese  god  of  peace,  that  altho 
there  is  a  certain  resemblance,  yet  that  they  look 
different  from  Btirmese  or  Siamese  specimens. 

There  is  certainly  an  artistic  resemblance  in  pose 
between  the  black  dolerite  statues  of  Goudea  from 
Babylonia,  some  of  the  great  statues  of  the  valley  of 
the  Nile,  and  the  great  Buddhas  of  the  far  East. 
So  much  of  a  resemblance  in  fact,  that  it  almost 
seems  as  though  the  Buddhas  and  the  Goudeas  may 
have  come  from  the  same  foimtain-head.  But  there 
is  no  proof  of  anything  of  the  kind,  and  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  this  surmise  is  incorrect. 

I  believe  myself  that  most  Chinese  art  was  of 
autochthonous    growth.     Chinese    writing    was    all 

^*^  Theodore  Duret:  Critiques  d'Avant  Garde,  Paris,  1885. 
"'  U   S.  Nat.  Mus. 


EAST   ASIATIC   ART.  HI 

done  with  lamp-black  ink,  the  so  called  India  ink  or 
encre  de  Chine,  with  a  brush,  and  it  is  possible  that 
a  native  pictorial  writing  was  the  foundation  of 
Chinese  art.  At  any  rate,  I  should  look  myself  for 
the  beginnings  of  most  Chinese  art  in  China  itself, 
but  for  any  which  may  be  extraneous,  and  that 
would  be  the  Buddhistic  religious  art,  I  should  look 
to  India  as  the  fountain-head. 

The  East  Asiatics  evolved  many  methods  of  art 
expression:  painting,  sculpture,  architecture,  metal 
work,  lacquers,  etc.  A  comprehension  of  their 
painting,  however,  is  of  paramount  importance  for 
a  proper  understanding  of  their  arts  because  these  all 
depend  on  the  faculty  of  design,  which  in  China  was, 
and  in  Japan  still  is,  the  great  national  esthetic 
characteristic.  Among  the  Japanese  this  gift  of 
design  is  expressed  in  their  painting,  their  sculpture, 
their  colored  prints,  their  architecture,  their  metal 
work,  their  lacquers,  their  pottery,  their  tissues, 
their  household  belongings,  in  fact  every  article  in 
daily  use  is  touched  all  thru  artistically  by  design. 
For  instance,  in  Japan,  the  most  useful  articles  about 
houses  and  temples  are  screens,  with  which  separa- 
tions into  inner  rooms  are  made,  and  it  is  precisely 
on  the  screens  that  the  finest  paintings  are  found. 
Or  again,  the  sword  was  the  favorite  weapon  in 
Japan  and  therefore  the  metal  working  artists 
lavished  on  the  hilts,  guards,  blades,  and  sheaths,  all 
the  resources   of   drawing,   sculpture,   casting  and 


112  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

enamelling.  In  fact,  all  the  arts  of  the  East  Asiatics 
are  based  on  design,  and  to  understand  their  arts, 
therefore,  an  elaborate  study  of  their  principles  of 
design  is  necessary. 

The  tools  and  materials  for  painting  used  by  the 
East  Asiatics  were  certainly  invented  by  the  Chinese, 
and  the  tools  and  materials  themselves  had  a  great 
influence  on  their  art  and  necessarily  helped  to  force 
it  into  something  different  from  Aryan  art.  Pencils 
and  pens,  in  fact  stiff  tools,  were  not  invented  by 
them,  only  soft  brushes.  Oil  painting  was  not  dis- 
covered by  them,  only  water  colors,  in  which  an  ab- 
solute imitation  of  nature  is  practically  impossible. 
They  painted  on  silk  or  on  an  absorbent  paper,  on 
either  of  which  retouching  and  correcting  are 
difficult.  They  were  thereby  driven  into  working 
h  premier  coup,  which  means  that  every  touch,  right 
or  wrong,  remains  and  helps  to  make  or  mar  the 
picture.  Their  painting  evolved  into  three  most 
usual  forms:  screens,  generally  six  panelled,  some- 
times with  one  picture  covering  the  whole  screen, 
sometimes  with  a  different  subject  on  each  panel; 
kakemonos,  the  things  that  are  hung  up, — these 
answering  to  the  pictures  that  we  hang  on  our  walls ; 
and  orihons  or  makemonos — the  things  that  are 
spread  out  or  the  things  that  are  rolled, — ^which  are 
hand  painted  or  printed  picture  books. 

The  shape  of  the  kakemono  as  a  rule  is  a  narrow 
upright  water  color  and  many  fine  screens  simply 


EAST   ASIATIC   ART.  113 

consist  of  six  such  water  colors  pasted  on  the  six 
panels.  There  are  many  other  shapes  for  kake- 
monos, however.  The  kakemonos  are  mounted  on 
colored  silk  or  brocades  and  in  these  mountings  for 
paintings,  the  East  Asiatics  differ  from  all  other 
races,  so  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  mount- 
ings alone,  their  paintings  are  absolutely  autoch- 
thonous. From  the  purely  utilitarian  point  of  view 
also  the  result  is  admirable.  The  strength  and 
flexibility  of  the  material  make  it  possible  for  the 
choicest  works  to  be  rolled  up  and  stored  away 
without  fear  of  injury  except  by  fire,  and  they  are  so 
light  that  they  can  be  imrolled  and  hung  up  at  a 
moment's  notice.  They  are  in  marked  contrast  to 
our  heavy,  costly  and  fragile  frames,  whose  only  re- 
deeming quality  is  the  gold.  In  fact,  it  seems  as  if 
the  East  Asiatics  had  long  ago  most  nearly  solved 
the  problem  of  mounting  pictures  with  their  beauti- 
ful silk  borders  for  their  light  and  delicate  kake- 
monos, which  can  be  put  away  and  only  looked  at  for 
a  brief  spell  of  artistic  enjoyment,  instead  of  hang- 
ing on  the  wall  until  their  owner  becomes  uncon- 
scious of  their  presence. 

The  East  Asiatics  do  not  put  their  painting  sur- 
face on  an  easel,  and  then  stand  or  sit  before  it  as  we 
do,  but  they  generally  sit  down  on  the  floor  with 
their  paper  or  silk  flat  in  their  laps  or  on  the  floor. 
Generally  they  paint  with  the  subject  before  them 
as  it  is  to  be  looked  at,  but  I  have  seen  the  Japanese 


114  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

artist  Aoki  painting  his  picture  side  wise  or  upside 
down.  They  never  use  a  hard  point,  but  always  soft 
brushes,  and  these  sometimes  end  in  a  fine  point  and 
sometimes  are  five  or  ten  centimeters  broad.  The 
hand  is  held  over  the  paper  with  a  rather  straight 
arm,  and  the  brush  is  held  vertically  between  the 
first  and  second  fingers  and  touches  the  paper  per- 
pendicularly. As  much  as  possible  the  fingers  and 
wrist  are  kept  motionless  and  the  strokes  are  put  on 
from  the  shoulder  or  the  elbow. 

From  the  different  manner  in  which  the  Aryans 
and  the  East  Asiatics  apply  paint  to  a  flat  surface, 
it  is  plain  that  there  is  a  divergence  in  the  artistic 
attitude  of  the  two  races.  As  a  rule,  the  Aryan 
draws  in  an  outline  with  a  point  and  then  puts  in 
washes  or  smears  of  paint,  eventually  covering  the 
entire  paper  or  canvas.  But  the  East  Asiatic 
paints  by  spots  and  by  lines  of  all  sorts  of  sizes 
and  shapes,  and  he  rarely  covers  his  paper.  With 
him  drawing  and  painting  is  one  process:  he  does 
not  draw  and  then  paint,  but  he  does  both  at  once. 
Sometimes  he  uses  only  India  ink,  sometimes  he 
uses  colors,  but  the  method  and  manner  of  handling 
are  the  same,  and  drawing  and  painting  are  simul- 
taneous. 

The  right  placing  of  the  spots  seems  to  be  the 
first  thought  of  the  East  Asiatic  in  creating  a  picto- 
rial work  of  art,  that  is,  it  is  the  composition,  the 
pattern,  he  is  thinking  of.     An  American  traveller, 


EAST   ASIATIC   ART.  115 

going  with  a  guide  through  some  of  the  shops  in 
T6kio,  was  taken  to  one  filled  with  gorgeous  objects 
with  lavish  decorations.  "Are  these  made  for  your 
own  connoisseurs  and  purchasers?"  he  asked.  "  Oh, 
no.  They  are  made  expressly  for  foreigners.  It  is 
their  taste."  "  But  I  want  to  see  what  the  Japanese 
admire."  "Oh,  you  would  see  the  few-pattern 
shops.  That  is  something  different."  In  the  few- 
pattern  shops  the  visitor  had  a  feeling  of  his  own 
incompetence.  He  coveted  and  enjoyed,  but  found 
himself  lacking  in  some  subtle  sense  possessed  by  the 
gentle  and  suave  little  men  who  showed  him  their 
treasures.  The  guide's  expression  "  few-pattern ' '  well 
illustrates,  I  think,  the  point  of  departure  of  the 
East  Asiatic  artist.  His  first  thought  in  creating  a 
work  of  art  is  the  pattern  or  composition.  He  be- 
lieves himself  to  be  at  his  best  when  he  is  most 
simple.  It  is  the  "few-pattern"  that  pleases  him 
most,  and  he  will  have  it  simple  because  to  be  simple 
and  agreeable  too  it  must  be  a  good  pattern.    ' 

What  the  East  Asiatic  artists  are  trying  for,  in 
other  words,  in  many  cases  is  to  suggest  something 
in  as  few  touches  as  possible,  and  trust  to  the  mind 
of  the  onlooker  to  do  the  rest  and  an  appropriate 
title  for  many  of  them  would  be  "Suggestionists." 
The  less  there  is  of  the  material  by  which  the  sug- 
gestion is  carried  out,  the  better,  as  a  rule,  the 
Chinese  and  Japanese  suggestionist  seems  to  like  it. 
He  does  not  always  want  chiarosctiro  and  detail. 


116  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

He  will  not  have  too  much.  He  is  bored  by  the 
elaborations  of  weakness.  He  seeks  a  vital  line.  He 
will  not  have  a  half  competent  line  helped  out  by 
two  or  three  others.  He  seems  able  to  look  thru 
the  paint  at  the  artistic  motive.  He  does  not  always 
care  to  copy  nature,  realizing  that  a  work  of  art  may 
be  good  and  yet  not  a  copy  of  nature,  while  a  direct 
copy  of  nature  may  be  bad.  On  the  other  hand, 
sometimes  the  East  Asiatic  finishes  every  detail  to 
the  limit. 

Mori  Sosen,  in  his  kakemonos  of  monkeys,  well 
illustrates  both  of  these  characteristics.  Some  of 
them  are  in  broad  dabs  without  detail,  while  in 
others  individual  hairs  are  shown.  In  both  methods 
his  productions  are  all  monkey,  nothing  but  monkey, 
and  with  a  little  delicate  water  color  on  a  sheet  of 
pale  silk  he  suggests  these  balls  of  soft  fur  enfolding 
flexible  sinews,  lazily  resting,  or  giving  vent  to  one 
of  the  swift  expressions  of  monkey  intelligence. 

The  placing  of  the  spots  in  the  better  work  seems 
to  be  the  result  of  the  inborn  taste  and  judgment  of 
each  individual  painter.  In  a  great  deal  of  the 
cheaper  work,  however,  it  seems  probable  that  the 
subjects  or  patterns  are  simply  memorized  copies  of 
the  work  of  better  artists.  In  either  case,  however, 
the  painters  as  a  rule  know  how  to  place  their  picture 
on  the  silk  in  a  way  to  make  it  effective  and  interest- 
ing, and  the  various  lines  and  spots  of  color  will 
almost  always  be  found  to  have  some  direct  relation 


EAST   ASIATIC    ART.  117 

to  the  main  composition.  The  stronger  painters 
certainly  put  careful  thought  and  real  feeling  into 
their  work.  A  Japanese  picture  dealer  once  said  to 
me,  "Oh,  we  do  not  paint  as  you  do.  Our  artists 
sometimes  take  a  long  time  to  think  before  they  put 
down  one  stroke." 

Into  the  spaces,  spots,  lines  and  accents,  enter,  of 
course,  endless  modifications.  Sometimes  there  is 
much  material  represented  and  the  space  is  crowded. 
For  instance,  in  a  kakemono  of  some  crows,  hud- 
dled upon  a  branch  against  the  moon,  you  are  to  feel 
night  in  a  tree  top  and  indistinct  crowding  forms.  To 
attain  this  the  design  is  large  and  dusky,  filling  the 
surface  entirely.  Sometimes  the  subject  is  dropped 
daintily  upon  the  paper  or  silk,  leaving  wide  spaces 
of  untouched  airy  surface,  as  in  a  beautiful  kake- 
mono of  Hoitsu  of  some  rocks  on  the  seashore  with 
two  cranes  flying  overhead  in  the  sunshine.  Here 
the  objects  are  small  in  a  wide  space,  holding  their 
own  by  clear  positive  assertion  of  form  and  action, 
the  spaces  of  imtouched  silk  giving  to  the  imagina- 
tive mind  as  good  an  impression  of  abimdant  air  and 
ocean  as  could  an  elaborate  seascape  of  myriad 
waves  and  clouds. 

East  Asiatic  art  is  generally  so  different  from 
Aryan  art  or  Semitic  art,  that  it  is  often  thought 
to  be  all  more  or  less  alike,  and  its  many  varieties 
are  not  always  recognized.  It  is  often  accused  of 
being  impersonal  and  conventional,  which  criticism 


118  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

is  accurate  only  to  the  same  extent  that  it  is  true 
of  Aryan  art.  It  is  only  want  of  knowledge  that 
makes  us  think  that  all  East  Asiatic  painting  is  from 
the  same  mold.  For  instance,  Yoshimitzu,  Yeitoku, 
Masanobu  and  Sosen  are  all  good  painters,  but  the 
style  of  each  one  is  distinct  from  that  of  the  others. 
Instead  of  saying  style,  however,  it  would  be  more 
accurate,  perhaps,  to  say  styles.  For  many  of 
the  East  Asiatics,  and  the  four  just  mentioned  are 
good  examples,  had  two  styles,  a  rough  strong 
style,  and  a  delicate  tender  style,  and  they  seemed 
able  to  produce  in  both  styles  at  the  same  period, 
varying  their  style  as  the  work  seemed  to  require 
it  or  as  the  mood  seems  to  have  struck  them. 

Probably  the  most  important  factor  in  East  Asi- 
atic art  is  that  all  of  it,  except  perhaps  some  studies, 
is  done  without  models.  That  is  to  say  it  is  done 
either  from  memory  or  from  imagination.  Almost 
all  their  art,  in  fact,  is  a  mental  process,  instead  of 
a  copying  of  nature,  that  is  it  is  imaginative.  It 
is  their  thoroly  trained  memory  that  enables 
them  to  give  free  play  to  their  imagination.  No 
one  has  looked  at  nature  with  keener  insight  than 
the  East  Asiatics,  and  their  knowledge  of  gesture 
and  action,  and  their  accuracy  in  suggesting  life 
and  nature  in  men  and  animals  is  marvelous.  They 
seem  able  to  detect  and  remember  at  a  glance  the 
most  fleeting  motions  of  human  beings;  the  mo- 
tions of  animals;   the  flight  of  birds;   they  can  sug- 


EAST   ASIATIC   ART.  119 

gest  rain  and  snow  storms,  and  the  trees  blown  by 
the  wind.  In  these  pictures  of  instantaneous  action 
the  Chinese  and  Japanese  have  never  been  sur- 
passed. 

There  is  an  extraordinary  picture  of  motion  drawn 
from  imagination  by  Korin  about  the  year  1750.-^^^ 
It  represents  a  stormy  sea,  a  couple  of  islands  with 
a  green  pine  tree  or  two,  and  a  few  clouds  floating 
over  the  waves.  From  any  imitative  standpoint, 
everything  in  the  picture,  the  drawing,  the  perspec- 
tive, the  color,  the  light  and  shade,  the  waves,  the 
pine  trees,  everything  is  wrong.  But  the  wave 
lines  exert  an  almost  hypnotic  influence  in  produc- 
ing a  sense  of  motion.  In  their  curious  and  monot- 
onous repetition,  the  action  of  the  waves  forces 
itself  on  the  onlookers'  brain,  until  the  waves 
almost   seem   to   move. 

The  East  Asiatics  paint  faces  quite  differently 
from  the  Aryans.  They  are  contented  with  a  few 
lines  and  spots  giving  the  expression,  and  they  al- 
most entirely  omit  shadows.  This  gives  a  great 
flatness  to  the  faces.  The  face  is  drawn  full  as  well 
as  in  profile  dating  from  far  back,  and  this  is  a  notable 
point  of  difference  between  East  Asiatic  and  West 
Asiatic  or  Egyptian  artists.  The  knowledge  by  the 
East  Asiatics  of  form  and  of  the  face  is  less  clearly 
shown  in  their  paintings  than  in  their  sculptures, 
in  their  netzkes,  their  theatrical  masks,  and  their 

^*^  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 


\ 


120  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

enormous  old  Buddhas.  In  these  the  faces  are 
sometimes  handled  with  the  breadth  and  accuracy  of 
the  best  Aryan  sculpture. 

The  power  of  modelling  the  face  shown  by  East 
Asiatic  artists  appears  nowhere  to  greater  advan- 
tage than  in  their  statues  of  divinities,  which,  with 
their  East  Asiatic  faces  and  their  long,  slim  fingers, 
are  totally  different  from  most  Aryan  sculptures. 
Chinese  gods,  such  as  a  bronze  statue  of  Kouan  Yin, 
the  Goddess  of  Mercy,  and  a  small  gilt  bronze  sta- 
tue of  longevity, ^*^  have  many  identical  character- 
istics with  Japanese  gods,  long  ear  lobes,  long  taper 
hands  and  nails,  and  calm  expressions.  The  Chinese 
gods,  however,  are  perhaps  even  more  reposeful 
than  the  Japanese  gods.  There  is  not  the  least 
\  doubt,  that  in  many  of  their  religious  sculptures  the 
Chinese  and  Japanese  rise  to  great  heights  as  artists. 
One  of  the  most  impressive  pieces  of  sculpture, 
in  my  opinion,  which  I  ever  saw,  is  a  group  of  Jap- 
anese warriors,"*  dressed  in  the  armor  and  carrying 
the  weapons  of  the  fifteenth  century  A.  D.,  receiv- 
ing the  tidings  of  a  disaster  in  battle.  This  group 
was  modelled  in  Japan  only  a  few  years  ago,  and 
the  expression  of  fear  and  horror  in  the  faces,  the 
lifelike  action  of  the  figures,  are  so  remarkable  that  it 
seems  to  me  very  near  to  perfection  as  an  art  work. 


^*^  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts,    1903.     From  the  palace  of  the  eighth 
Prince,  Pekin;  both  lent  by  Lieut.  R.  de  L.  Hasbrouck. 
^**  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


\ 


EAST   ASIATIC    ART.  121 

The  bare  foot,  and  especially  the  foot  in  action, 
often  appears  in  Japanese  drawings.  If  these  rep- 
resentations should  seem  exaggerated  to  anyone, 
it  ought  to  be  remembered  that  many  of  us  do 
not  even  know  what  the  normal  foot  looks  like, 
since,  thanks  to  our  ill  shaped  boots,  there  is  hardly 
a  city  dweller  in  Europe  or  America  whose  foot 
is  not  more  or  less  deformed.  But  with  the  Jap- 
anese the  toes,  un trammeled  and  undamaged  by 
our  stiff,  unanatomical  sheaths  of  leather,  have 
almost  the  prehensile  quality  of  fingers,  and  are 
used  not  only  for  grasping  the  footgear,  but  also 
often  by  mechanics  as  a  second  pair  of  hands. 
Their  drawings  of  the  foot  in  action,  therefore, 
are  simply  records  of  observations  of  nature. 

In  the  paintings  of  animals,  the  East  Asiatics 
are  supreme.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  they  are  the 
greatest  animal  painters  in  the  world.  A  few  Euro- 
pean painters  and  sculptors,  such  as  Paul  Potter, 
Troyon,  and  Barye,  have  left  some  good  animals, 
generally  in  repose,  as  their  contribution  to  art. 
There  are  some  few  splendid  animals  in  Greek 
sculpture,  and  there  are  some  sporadic  examples 
among  other  peoples,  like  the  wounded  lioness  of 
Koyunjik,  but  there  have  been  dozens  of  great 
animal  painters  among  the  Chinese  and  Japanese, 
with  whom  animal  art  is  a  racial  characteristic. 
When  one  of  their  great  artists  paints  an  animal, 
it  is  not  posing,  it  is  not  motionless,  it  is  just  in 


J 


122  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

action  with  a  genuine  animal  movement.  It  has 
the  character  of  that  particular  animal  and  to  get 
the  animal  character  is  really  the  main  essence 
of  animal  painting.  In  this  field  of  animal  art 
the  East  Asiatics  are  in  touch  with  the  Pleistokenes 
and  with  the  best  Aryan  artists. 

I  have  seen  two  beautiful  kakemonos  of  ani- 
mals, which  seem  worth  mentioning.  One  by 
Tsunenobu,  of  about  the  year  1685,  shows  a  golden 
eagle  perched  on  a  high  branch.  The  treatment 
is  broad  and  masterly,  but  a  trifle  hard,  for  every 
feather  in  sight  is  carefully  worked  out.  The 
other  kakemono  is,  in  all  probability,  by  a 
Chinese  artist  of  the  Ming  Dynasty  of  about 
the  year  1450.  It  is  a  half  life  size  tiger  which, 
semi-crouching,  faces  you.  The  eyes  are  touched 
with  gold,  and  the  detail  is  so  minute,  that  you 
see  the  individual  hairs  of  the  mustache.  Yet 
so  broadly  it  is  treated,  so  feline  is  the  crawling 
motion,  that  it  makes  you  almost  afraid  that  the 
beast  is  going  to  spring.  I  am  myself  inclined 
to  rank  this  tiger  as  the  most  perfect  animal  paint- 
ing I  ever  saw. 

In  the  FenoUosa  collections*^  are  many  interesting 
paintings  of  animals.  Among  these  may  be  men- 
tioned two  SIX  panelled  screens  by  Shukei  Sesson, 
about  1500-1570,  representing  some  Chinese  mon- 

. .  ^*\  Boston.  Mus.  Fine  Arts.  .  . 


EAST   ASIATIC   ART.  123 

keys  in  India  ink,  with  little  detail  but  great  S}^!- 
thetic  power.  A  screen  in  India  ink  by  Sesshiu, 
1420-1507,  representing  two  screaming  cranes  pur- 
sued down  a  waterfall  in  a  forest  by  two  hawks, 
is  unsurpassable  for  form,  action,  motion  and 
synthesis.  Mr.  Paul  Chalfin,  curator  of  the  Jap- 
anese section  of  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts, 
told  me  he  believed  this  screen  symbolized  the 
dangers  of  humanity  or  something  like  that.  In 
two  kakemonos  of  cranes  by  Tosa  Mitsunobu, 
1434-1526,  the  birds  are  well  drawn,  but,  as  there 
is  nothing  else  on  the  silk,  the  kakemonos  are  not 
exactly  what  we  consider  pictures.  Two  screens 
by  Kano  Utanosuke,  1513-1570,  of  landscapes 
with  trees,  are  enlivened  in  one  case  by  ducks, 
in  the  other  by  cats  and  small  birds:  but  the  ani- 
mals are  only  fair  and  the  work  is  not  synthetic. 
By  Kano  Tanyu  there  are  some  inferior,  weak 
and  mushy  colored  kakemonos  of  deer.  By  Hase- 
gewa  Tohahei,  1570-1600,  there  are  two  screens 
which  form  one  picture.  In  one  of  these  a  tiger 
is  facing  one  way  and  snarling.  In  the  other, 
a  dragon  faces  the  other  way  and  is  writhing  about. 
The  dragon's  body  suggests  clouds  and  the  hand- 
ling is  broad  and  synthetic.  Mr.  Chalfin  said  he 
believed  these  kakemonos  symbolize  a  conflict  of 
spiritual  things,  represented  by  the  dragon,  against 
material  things,  represented  by  the  tiger. 

Perspective,  in  the  art  of  the  East  Asiatics,   is 


124  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

found  to  a  certain  extent,  principally  in  their  more 
realistic  and  autochthonous  work.  In  their  land- 
scapes, animals,  out-door  scenes  and  figures  without 
surroundings,  or  with  landscape  surroundings,  they 
use  perspective  in  much  the  same  way  as  our  painters, 
and  with  the  same  amount  of  accuracy.  In  the 
works  of  Ririomin,  for  instance,^*^  an  old  Japanese 
painter,  there  are  some  great  feats  of  perspective. 
Hokusei's  "Hundred  Views  of  Fujiyama"  and 
Hiroshige's  prints  of  figures  and  buildings,  may  be 
cited  as  easily  accessible  examples  of  how  well  the 
Japanese  can  render  perspective.  In  many  other 
works  also  the  artists  conquered  perspective,  as  in 
a  screen  by  Gembei  Katsushige,  about  1650,^*^  of  the 
Yoshiwara,  which  shows  the  houses  and  figures 
on  one  side  of  the  street  drawn  in  a  perspective  as 
if  looking  from  a  roof  opposite.  The  clouds  are 
gold,  and  there  are  many  colors  and  much  analysis 
in  the  figures,  but  the  whole  picture,  while  interesting, 
is  not  very  synthetic. 

Moreover,  the  comprehension  of  artistic  perspec- 
tive is  a  traditional  inheritance  of  the  East  Asiatics. 
They  really  drew  a  scene  as  it  looked  to  them,  that 
is  they  drew  and  painted  their  impressions  from 
very  far  back.  For  instance,  there  is  a  drawing 
in  the  British  Museum^^^  by  Wu-Tao-tsz  of  a  land- 


"*  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 
^*'  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 
**'  Reproduced  by  Anderson. 


EAST   ASIATIC   ART.  125 

scape  with  a  waterfall.  Wu-Tao-tsz  was  a  Chinese 
artist  of  the  eighth  century,  and  if  an  unprejudiced 
critic  will  compare  this  landscape  with  "The  Shores 
of  Wharfe  "  by  Ttuner/*^  I  think  he  will  surely  notice 
the  resemblance  in  feeling  between  the  two  pictures, 
nor  can  he  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  fact  that  in 
China,  the  cradle  of  Japanese  art,  there  was,  at 
least  one  thousand  years  ago,  an  accurate  natural- 
istic rendering  of  nature.  The  indoor  mathematical 
perspective  of  rooms  and  buildings  the  Chinese 
and  Japanese  are  rarely  able  to  manage  and  this  is 
a  proof  that  their  art  intelligence  works  in  a  purely 
artistic  manner,  because  indoor  perspective  is  really 
a  geometrical  science. 

In  regards  to  values,  the  art  of  the  East  Asiatics 
differs  greatly  from  that  of  the  Aryans.  They 
insist  much  less  on  values.  In  the  first  place,  both 
in  China  and  Japan,  the  whole  of  the  picture  is 
rarely  covered  by  the  paint,  a  technical  method 
which  is  indispensable  to  attain  even  approximately 
correct  values.  But  all  their  art  shows  that  these 
close  observers  of  nature,  thru  the  centuries 
of  their  art  history,  noticed  just  as  carefully  as 
we  do  the  facts  of  light  and  shade  which  force 
themselves  upon  an  onlooker,  and  if  values  are  not 
carried  as  far  with  them  as  with  us,  it  is  because 
they  are  more   interested  in   other  points.     It   is 

**'  Reproduced  in  Ruskin's  Modern  Painters. 


126  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

partly  their  seeking  principally  for  arrangements 
of  lines  and  spots  of  color,  and  partly  the  non-opaque 
nature  of  their  medium,  that  prevents  their  con- 
centrating their  interest  on  values  as  we  do,  and 
that  causes  them  to  rarely  more  than  suggest  them. 
They  use  values  rather  in  an  arbitrary  way;  for 
instance,  to  make  the  central  object  in  their  picture 
felt  and  give  it  the  superior  importance  they  wish 
it  to  have.  If  you  are  to  look  across  a  chasm  they 
will  not  allow  a  foreground  object  to  be  of  sufficient 
importance  to  detain  your  interest.  In  a  word,  the 
sentiment  of  gradation  actuates  them  as  it  does 
ourselves,  but  it  has  a  different  manifestation. 

It  is  partly  also  because  the  East  Asiatics  evidently 
realize  that  all  art  has  limitations  and  is  in  the  nature 
of  a  compromise,  that  they  are  willing  to  accept  the 
suggestion  of  values  instead  of  requiring  an  attempt 
to  produce  actuality  where  in  the  nature  of  things 
it  can  never  be  actually  produced.  Le  mieux  est 
Vennemi  du  hien  might  be  their  motto.  Their 
efforts  do  not  show  a  good  intention  clumsily  carried 
out,  but  one  has  rarely  a  sense  of  incompleteness, 
because  they  are  not  so  much  trying  to  mimic  the 
thing  itself  as  to  suggest  its  main  features  and  its 
spirit. 

That  the  Chinese  and  Japanese  understand  per- 
spective and  values  is  evinced  in  nothing  more 
than  in  their  mountain  paintings.  No  artists  have 
evoked  thru  paper  and  paint  more  thoroly  the  idea 


EAST   ASIATIC   ART.  127 

of  misty  heights  and  deep  gorges  with  foaming 
waterfalls.  Aerial  perspective  is  as  perfectly  sug- 
gested, even  if  not  carried  out  to  a  limit,  as  in  any 
Aryan  picture.  For  instance,  an  unusually  soft  and 
delicate  kakemono  by  Toyohiko,  about  1820  A.  D., 
of  a  bridge  and  trees  with  three  distant  precipices, 
is  done  with  strong  accents  in  the  bridge  and  trees, 
with  a  paler  and  paler  wash  of  India  ink  for  each 
of  the  three  successive  rock  walls  imtil  the  last  wash 
is  scarcely  visible,  while  the  immediate  foregroimd 
is  left  in  the  delicate  pale  yellow  of  the  silk.  A 
landscape  by  Masanobu,^^^  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
shows  thoro  knowledge  of  perspective,  the  dis- 
tant mountain  forms  looking  but  little  sharper 
than  the  Dent  du  Geant  or  the  Romsdalhorn  or 
the  Saas  Maor,  while  the  foreground  trees  and  rocks 
are  placed  so  that  the  eye  looks  down  into  the  depths 
of  a  great  gorge  well  below  the  spectator.  Now 
there  is  no  more  difficult  feat  in  landscape  perspec- 
tive than  this.  And  as  Masanobu  was,  foiu:  centuries 
ago,  one  of  the  foimders  of  one  of  the  great  schools 
of  Japan,  the  Kano,  it  is  only  natural  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  perspective  was  an  inheritance  of  all  his 
followers. 

In  the  FenoUosa  coUection,^^^  there  are  many  good 
examples  of  these  various  points.  For  instance, 
by  Sotan,   1398-1465,  there  are  two  capital  screens 


1^°  British  Mus.     Reproduced  by  Anderson. 
"*  Boston  Mvis.  Fine  Arts. 


128  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

in  India  ink,  in  the  Chinese  style,  of  landscape, 
hills  and  ocean,  in  correct  linear  and  atmospheric 
perspective;  by  Kano  Motonobu,  fifteenth  century, 
there  is  a  firm  India  ink  sketch  of  Fuji  with  trees 
in  the  foreground,  without  much  poetry  or  atmos- 
phere, but  with  accurate  drawing,  form,  and  per- 
spective; by  Naomi,  fifteenth  century,  there  are 
three  nice  little  landscape  kakemonos,  showing 
similar  good  work. 

In  another  respect  also  the  East  Asiatics  are  at 
variance  with  the  Aryans  and  that  is  in  the  way 
they  handle  the  background  or  as  the  French  say, 
the  fond.  The  Chinese  and  Japanese  artist  as  a  rule 
tries  to  present  a  design  that  will  gratify,  indepen- 
dently of  the  subject,  and  also  to  present  this  design 
so  forcibly  that  the  impression  from  it  is  single 
and  incisive.  In  order  to  accomplish  this  he  chooses 
to  omit  much  that  we  are  accustomed  to  look  for, 
and  in  many  cases  he  dispenses  with  background 
just  as  he  does  with  chiaroscuro.  When  he  wants 
to  bring  out  certain  objects  near  by,  he  emphasizes 
them  by  merely  suggesting  by  a  few  touches  or 
by  neglecting  altogether  things  beyond.  When,  on 
the  contrary,  he  tries  for  objects  further  off, 
he  reverses  his  process  and  in  such  kakemonos 
the  distance  must  not  be  taken  for  background. 
Fujiyama  rising  from  the  clouds,  a  sail  peeping  out 
of  mist,  the  delicately  suggested  other  side  of  a 
moimtain  chasm,   these  are  the  primary  interests 


EAST   ASIATIC   ART.  129 

of  the  picture  which  does  not  detain  you  with  a 
vigorous  foreground  of  shrub,  bird  or  leaf  drawing. 

In  regard  to  pure  color,  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
East  Asiatics  have  a  deep,  inborn  love  and  feeling    j 
for  color.     Sometimes  their  color  is  in  quiet,  mel-    I 
low  tones,  sometimes  in  gorgeous  ones,  but  in  the 
work  of  the  masters  it  is  generally  in  harmony. 
It  is  taste,  not  reason  that  directs,  and  the  innate 
sense   of  color  is   the   controlling  element.     Their 
color  combinations  are  endless.     Each  colored  screen 
or    kakemono    has    its    own    individtial    dominant 
note.     Color   printing    also    was    never   carried    so    > 
far  nor  to  such  perfection  as  with  the  Japanese. 

The  East  Asiatic  artists  seem  to  be  so  at  one 
with  the  cosmic  forces  around  them  that  their 
color  schemes  are  often  taken  from  minute  objects 
in  nature  that  go  imnoticed  largely  except  by 
naturalists.  I  do  not  here  refer  to  their  careful 
drawing  and  painting  of  bird  and  insect  life  as 
such,  but  to  their  use  of  color  motives  foimd  in 
natural  objects.  Taking  for  instance,  as  a  keynote, 
a  shell  fresh  from  the  sea  with  a  bit  of  seaweed 
hanging  to  it,  or  a  stone  festooned  with  moss  and 
lichen,  they  will  make  a  whole  picture  harmonize 
to  this  keynote.  Now  the  human  mind  cannot 
invent  color  schemes  as  delicate,  original  and 
simple  as  those  found  in  the  minute  forms  of  nature. 
The  pattern  of  creamy  pinks  and  grays  upon  a 
crab  or  upon  a  mushroom  freshly  pulled  out  of 


130  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

black  mold;  a  moth's  wing  or  a  goose's  feather 
contain  color  motives  which  the  Chinese  and  Jap- 
anese alone  of  all  people  seem  to  have  availed 
themselves  of  for  the  purposes  of  art.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  their  designs  have  often  the  dis- 
tinction and  reserve  in  color  which  such  objects 
have,  and  the  result  is  a  revelation,  not  a  repro- 
duction of  nature. 

Proportion  in  a  color  scheme  is  a  potent  factor 
in  its  success  and  proportion  is  one  of  the  strongest 
characteristics  of  the  East  Asiatic  art  intelligence, 
and  in  the  delicacy  of  an  individual  tone,  as  well 
as  in  the  wise  arrangement  of  many,  they  have 
never  been  surpassed.  Color  is  a  matter  of  the 
senses  chiefly  and  before  the  entrance  of  the  Aryans 
into  Eastern  Asia  the  color  sense  of  the  Japanese, 
at  least,  seems  to  have  remained  intact.  With 
the  inroads  of  the  whites,  however,  and  the  intro- 
duction of  oil  paints,  all  this  was  changed,  and 
the  East  Asiatic  mind  seemed  unable  to  assimilate 
our  artistic  methods,  knowledge  or  materials.  All 
their  sense  of  proportion  and  feeling  for  color  seem 
to  have  been  destroyed  at  one  fell  swoop  when 
they  began  to  work  for  the  European  market. 
The  color  names  of  the  tints  in  the  modem  work 
may  all  be  found  in  the  dictionary,  blue,  green, 
yellow,  red.  What  these  words  suggest  unqualified 
is  plainly  set  down  and  thought  adequate  to  satisfy 
the  needs  and  drain  the  purses  of  the  foreign  buyers 


EAST   ASIATIC   ART,  131 

A  violent  tone  that  would  once  have  been  used 
as  a  line,  an  accent,  only,  now  covers  half  a  page 
in  a  picture  book.  This  was  not  so  in  other  days, 
for  one  could  not  name  or  describe  the  colors  of 
the  old  kakemonos  or  indeed  of  the  finer  colored 
prints. 

The  art  of  all  peoples  reflect  to  a  great  extent 
the  civilization,  environment,  ethics  and  char- 
acteristics of  each  race.  This  is  as  true  of  the 
East  Asiatics  as  of  every  people.  It  applies  not 
only  to  the  art  they  developed  themselves,  but 
to  the  art  they  borrowed  from  their  southern  neigh- 
bors. 

The  extraneous  portion  of  East  Asiatic  art,  the 
less  autochthonous  one,  the  one  which  must  have 
drifted  into  China  from  the  south,  is  as  already 
mentioned,  the  art  resulting  from  the  spread  of 
the  Buddhist  religion.  Much  of  this  art  took  the 
form  of  sculpture,  principally  sculptures  of  the 
Buddha,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  the  type  of  the 
Buddhas  of  China  and  Japan,  while  closely  re- 
sembling that  of  the  Buddhas  of  Biirma  and  Siam, 
yet  is  more  pronoimcedly  Asiatic  than  the  latter. 

Much  of  the  Buddhist  art  of  China  and  Japan 
took  the  form  of  painting,  which  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  the  case  in  Burma  or  Siam  to  anything 
like  the  same  extent.  A  favorite  subject  is  the 
death  of  the  Buddha,  aroimd  whom  are  gathered 
sorrowing  men   and  especially  sorrowing  animals. 


132  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

The  subject  in  many  of  these  religious  pictures  is 
often  important  from  a  rehgious  point  of  view, 
while  the  execution  is  poor.  The  figures  are  usually 
carefully  worked  out  in  their  details,  but  there  is 
often  a  total  lack  of  perspective,  glaring  colors  in 
hopeless  discord,  and  not  a  trace  of  artistic  syn- 
thesis. Much  of  this  religious  art  may  be  pro- 
notinced  as  most  inferior  from  an  artistic,  pictorial 
standpoint.  It  looks  rather  as  if  these  non-pic- 
torial pictures  were  an  importation,  and  I  suspect 
that  much  of  the  bad  art  of  the  East  Asiatics  is 
the  result  of  imitating  the  work  of  their  less  gifted 
neighbors. 

Several  early  Japanese  kakemonos,^^^  for  instance, 
of  about  800  A.  D.,  are  purely  Hindu.    The  faces 
are   Hindu,    and  the  Buddha's  feet  have  the  up- 
turned soles  one  finds  in  Ceylon  and  Southern  Asia. 
A  kakemono  by  Chinkai,  Iko-Daihashi,  of  the  year 
1143    probably,    which   is   inscribed  on  the  back, 
shows  almost  pure  South  Asiatic  faces  and  positions 
for   Buddhist   saints.    These  early  kakemonos  are 
poor  painting,  but  then  they  are  almost  faded  away. 
Some  of  the  old  masters  of  China  and  Japan, 
V[  however,  grafted  the  Buddhist  beliefs  on  the  East 
I  Asiatic  technic  and  these   men  left  some  splendid 
1  works   to   survive   them.     They   might,    not   inap- 
propriately, be  called  subjective  painters  or  ideal- 
ists, or  perhaps  rather  mysticists,  for  to  the  gen- 

^"  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 


^AST   ASIATIC   ART.  133 

uine  Buddhists  everything  in  nature  was  filled 
with  the  divine  spirit  of  the  Buddha  and  every- 
thing visible  had  some  spiritual  meaning.  Of  these 
men,  Sesshiu,  a  Japanese  Buddhist  priest  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  may  be  taken  as  the  highest 
type.  When  you  look  at  one  of  Sesshiu's  great 
pictures,  painted  without  detail  in  great  soft  rolls 
and  wipes  of  the  brush,  you  are  looking  not  at  a 
realistic  representation  of  nature,  but  at  Sesshiu's 
idea  of  the  divine  spirit  as  shown  in  things.  It  is 
a  different  spirit  from  that  of  Fra  Angelico,  to 
whom  one  can  compare  Sesshiu  in  a  spiritual  sense. 
But  it  is  different  in  the  sense  in  which  Christianity 
and  Buddhism  are  different.  Angelico  paints  the 
spirit  which  is  not  of  this  world,  Christ  and  his 
angels.  To  Sesshiu  the  world  is  the  spirit.  To 
Sesshiu  nature,  the  birds,  the  trees,  everything  visible 
contains  something  spiritual,  and  it  is  that  spiritual 
something  he  is  thinking  of. 

Personally,  I  much  prefer,  and  wotild  rank  much 
higher,  the  art  which  the  East  Asiatics  evolved 
themselves  and  in  which  they  are  so  different  from 
other  races.  These  pictures  seem  to  appeal  almost 
always  to  the  artistic  sense.  Their  subtle  drawing, 
their  color  harmonies  please  fastidious  eyes  and 
nerves  often  far  beyond  the  power  to  know  why. 
Their  emotions,  their  love  of  nature  are  expressed 
in  their  art,  in  which  they  show  most  delicate  desires 
and  perceptions  in  regard  to  the  beauty  of  every- 


134  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

day  life.  Their  love  of  making  the  charm  of  the 
changing  seasons  felt  within  doors  as  well  as  with- 
out is  one  instance  of  their  wish  to  be  in  har- 
mony with  nature.  Often  we  do  not  feel  the  esthetic 
feeling  which  is  in  their  art;  we  admire  where 
they  would  criticize  and  the  point  of  value  of  the 
work  to  their  eyes  escapes  us.  And  in  all  this  the 
visual  sensitiveness,  the  mental  sensitiveness  should 
be  recognized  which  finds  itself  wearied  by  any  art 
object  always  in  sight,  and  which  insists  upon  hav- 
ing constant  refreshment  and  pleasure  from  fresh 
art  objects,  because  to  sensitive  nerves  any  keen 
pleasure  is  short  lived. 

The  life,  the  traditions,  the  environment  of  the 
Yellow  race  are  different  from  those  of  the  White 
race,  and  therefore  we  find  the  artists  choosing  dif- 
ferent subjects  from  ourselves.  To  the  Chinese  and 
Japanese  life  means  inexhaustible  activity;  the  tire- 
less performance  of  great  and  small  duties  in  a  spirit 
of  cheerful  patience.  The  people  may  be  poor  and 
half  fed,  but  the  artist  who  watches  them  does  not 
strive  to  wring  our  hearts  with  pity.  He  watches 
their  patient  activity  as  we  watch  an  ant  rushing 
diligently  along  carrying  a  morsel  twice  its  size. 
He  sees  the  troops  of  wood  carriers  on  steep  moim- 
tain  sides,  the  soldiers  on  long  marches,  the  crafts- 
men who  think  it  no  waste  of  a  lifetime  to  spend  it 
in  learning  to  do  and  perform  perfectly  some  minor 
mechanical  operation.     Every  man  is  in  his  place 


EAST   ASIATIC   ART.  135 

and  doing  either  for  honor  or  his  liveHhood's  sake 
what   befits   it. 

By  nature  a  cheerful  race,  most  of  their  art  is 
cheerful  in  subject.  Observers  and  lovers  of  nature 
as  they  are,  much  of  their  work  is  a  record  of  some- 
thing actually  seen.  It  is  due  to  these  characteristics 
that  the  majority  of  their  paintings  are  either  of 
animals,  birds,  flowers,  landscapes,  or  of  pleasant 
reminiscences  of  their  life,  such  as  house  scenes, 
tea  drinkings,  water  parties,  flower  festivals,  and  on 
such  scenes  they  will  lavish  all  possible  charms  of 
color.  There  is  an  exquisite  colored  print  of  Toyo- 
kuni's  of  one  of  these  flower  festivals  with  three 
slender  girls  waving  sprays  of  early  fruit  blossoms, 
their  delicately  colored  robes  and  willowy  bodies 
moving  in  the  April  air  with  the  grace  and  soft- 
ness so  noticeable  in  Botticelli. 

But  other  subjects  also  are  chosen.  Many  of  the 
people  of  Japan,  for  instance,  were  warriors  and 
therefore  there  are  many  representations  of  violent 
strife,  of  fights  between  samurai  or  between  .men 
and  beasts,  and  combats  with  demons  and  legendary 
monsters.  The  performance  of  harakiri  is  often 
represented,  altogether  there  are  plenty  of  pictures 
showing  that  there  was  a  very  ungentle  side  to  East 
Asiatic  life.^^^ 

^^'  William  Anderson:    The  Pictorial  Arts  of  Japan,  1886. 
Louis  Gonse:  L'Art  Japonais,  1883. 

Ernest  F.  FenoUosa:  Review  of  the  Chapter  on  Painting  in  Gonse' s 
L'Art  Japonais,  Boston,  1885.     This  small  and  rare  work,  for  a  copy 


136  comparative  art. 

Ainu  Art. 

The  Ainu  seem  to  be  almost  lacking  in  any  art 
sense.  At  least,  I  have  seen  no  art  specimens  from 
them,  beyond  some  gowns^^^  from  Yezo  and  from 
North  Japan,  which  the  Ainu  have  decorated  with 
wavy  lines  of  rather  unusual  patterns.  It  is,  there- 
fore, at  present,  impossible  for  me  to  connect  them 
artistically  with  any  other  race. 

A  half  tone  from  a  photograph^^^  shows  a  number 
of  skulls,  some  at  least  of  animals,  stuck  on  a  row 
of  posts  in  front  of  a  hut.  The  resemblance  in  idea 
to  Korean  guide  posts,  to  Alaska  totem  poles  and 
to  Borneo  funeral  poles  is  unmistakable. 

Some  photographs  of  Ainus^^®  do  not  suggest  a 
Yellow  but  a  White  race.  In  fact,  to  my  mind,  there 
is  a  strong  resemblance  to  Russians  in  the  faces. ^^^ 
East  Siberian   Art. 

From  Eastern  Siberia  comes  some  art  from  the 
Chukchee,  Korak^^^  and  Yakaghir  tribes,  which  has 

of  which  I  am  indebted  to  Professor  Edward  S.  Morse,  of  Salem, 
Mass.,  is  the  most  important  work  yet  published  on  Japanese  painting. 

Ernest  F.  FenoUosa:  "Contemporary  Japanese  Art:"  The  Cen- 
tury Illustrated  Monthly  Magazine,  1893,  Vol.  XLVI. 

John  La  Farge:  "An  Artist's  letters  from  Japan;"  The  Century 
Illustrated  Monthly  Magazine,  1893,  Vol.  XLVI. 

James  S.  de  Benneville  :  Sakurambo,  1906. 

^^*  Am.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist.     U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 

*^5  The  Four-Track  News,  Vol.  II.,  No.  5,  November,  1904,  page  291. 

^^^  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.     Mabel  Loomis  Todd:  Corona  and  Coronet,  1899. 

^^'  An  inscription  in  the  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.  says  the  Ainus  are  Mon- 
gols. A  notice  in  the  British  Mus.  says  the  Ainu  of  Yezo  are  almost 
of  Caucasian  appearance. 

^**  W.  B.  Vanderlip  and  H.  B.  Hulbert;  In  Search  of  a  Siberian 
Klondike,  1903,  p.  95. 


AINU   ART.       EAST    SIBERIAN    ART.  137 

only  faint  resemblances  to  its  southern  neighbors, 
whilst  it  is  very  similar  to  the  more  northern  Eskimo 
art,  and  it  also  resembles  in  some  ways  some  of  the 
art  on  the  American  side  of  the  so-called  Bering 
Strait:  a  strait  which  was  first  called  the  Strait  of 
Anian  and  was  marked  on  atlases  at  least  as  far 
back  as  1570,^^^  and  which  the  Kossack  Deshneff 
sailed  thru  in  1648. 

From  the  Chukchees^^  come  some  bone  and  wood 
carvings  which  look  much  like  Eskimo  work.  They 
also  make  rough  drawings  on  wood. 

The  Koraks^**^  make  bone  and  wood  carvings 
like  those  of  the  Chukchees,  but  which  are  a  little 
less  like  Eskimo  work.  They  also  make  rough  and 
shapeless   drawings   on   wood. 

The  Yakaghir^^^  cut  silhouettes  of  animals,  elk, 
bear,  etc.,  out  of  birchbark.  They  incise  on  birch- 
bark  figures  something  like  those  on  East  North 
Amerind  blankets,  and  also  ornament  with  patterns 
in   lines. 

Australasian  Art. 

In  all  the  islands  almost  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  we 
find  an  art  which  is  entirely  different  from  Greek, 
Kaldean,  Egyptian  or  Hindu  art;  of  which  some 
specimens  have  certain  traits  of  Japanese  art,  and 
in  which  there  are  so  many  generic  traits  common 

*^®  Abraham  Ortelius:  Theatrum  Orhis  Terrarum,  1570. 
""  Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist. 
"^  Amer,  Mus.  Nat.  Hist. 
*"  Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist. 


138  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

also  to  African  art  that  it  seems  as  if  Australasian 
art  and  African  art  must  be  closely  related.  Most  of 
this  art  consists  of  wooden  sculptured  figures,  some- 
times with  unnaturally  large  heads,  always  with 
curiously  shaped  heads,  frequently  with  undersized 
bodies,  and  generally  with  very  short  legs. 

The  art  of  every  large  island  or  of  every  archi- 
pelago of  the  South  Pacific,  while  remaining  Aus- 
tralasian art,  yet  varies  somewhat  from  the  art  of 
all  the  other  islands.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
Australasian  art  may  be  divided  into  two  or  more 
subtypes.  One  subtype  would  include  some  of  the 
art  of  Sumatra,  New  Guinea,  Solomon  Islands, 
Hervey  Islands,  Hawaii,  New  Zealand,  Rapa-Nui. 
This  might  be  called  the  Rapa-Nui  type.  An- 
other subtype  would  probably  include  the  art 
of  the  Nicobars,  Marquesas,  Samoa,  Tahiti,  New 
Hebrides,  New  Caledonia,  New  Britain,  Australia. 
This  might  be  called  the  inferior  Australasian  type. 
The  art  of  New  Ireland  is  so  individual  that  it  is 
difficult  to  classify  with  either  of  the  others :  proba- 
bly it  belongs  to  both.  The  inferior  Australasian 
art  type  is  less  mature  than  the  Rapa-Nui  type  and 
it  is  perhaps  more  in  the  shape  of  the  heads,  than  in 
anything  else,  that  there  is  a  difference.  As  far  as 
I  can  judge,  these  subtypes  in  art  are  due  to  the 
presence  of  two  or  more  races  in  Australasia.  Most 
Australasian  art  was  fathered  by  a  black,  Negro, 
race,  known  as  Melanesians.     Some  of  it  must  be 


AUSTRALASIAN    ART.  139 

referred  to  some  brown  peoples,  whom  we  call 
Polynesians  and  Malayans,  and  about  whose  origin 
we  are  very  hazy  :  but  there  may  be  Whites  from 
Southern  Asia  and  Yellows  from  Eastern  Asia  among 
their  ancestors.  The  art  specimens  from  Australasia, 
however,  apparently  do  not  always  correspond  with 
the  habitat  of  the  Melanesian,  Polynesian,  and 
Malay  races  as  given  by  ethnologists,  and  therefore 
it  seems  most  rational  to  speak  separately  of  the  art 
of  each  island  group,  following  as  far  as  possible 
their  geographical  positions  from  west  to  east.^®^ 

Nicobars. 

From  the  Nicobars  comes  some  rather  original 
art.  There  are  many  large  wooden  figures,^®^  almost 
nude,  from  about  sixty  centimeters  to  two  meters 
high.     Some  of  the  faces  are  painted  red,  and  the 

^"  Coiint  R.  Tolna  de  Festetics :  Chez  les  Cannibales,  Paris,  Plon- 
Nourrit,  1903.     There  are  some  good  illustrations  in  this  book. 

The  New  International  Encyclopcedia  gives  the  following  division 
of  races  in  the  South  Pacific: 

Polynesians:  a  brown  race:  Hawaii,  EUice,  Samoa,  Tonga,  Her- 
vey.  Society,  Low,  Marquesas. 

Micronesians:  a  brown  race:  Ladrone,  Pelew,  Marshall,  Caroline, 
Gilbert. 

Malayans:  a  brown  race:   Sunda,   Sumatra,  Java,  Bali,  Lombok, 
Sumbawa,  Flores,  Timor,  Borneo,  Celebes,  Philippines,  Moluccas. 
.     Melanesians:  a  black  race:   Admiralty,   Bismark,   Solomon,  Santa 
Cruz,  New  Hebrides,  New  Caledonia,  Loyalty,  Fiji. 

The  British  Museum  puts  its  specimens  in  the  following  order: — 

Andaman,  Nicobars,  Sumatra,  Java,  Borneo,  New  Guinea,  Mar- 
quesas, Samoa,  Tonga,  Hawaii,  Tahiti,  Fiji,  New  Hebrides,  Solomon, 
New  Caledonia,  New  Britain,  New  Ireland,  Hervey,  Torres  Strait, 
Australia,  New  Zealand,  Rapa-Nui. 

^®*  British  Mus.  An  inscription  says  these  are  supposed  to  be  in- 
tended to  frighten  away  evil  spirits. 


140  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

eyes  are  set  in  with  something  white.  There  is  no 
technical  art  value  to  any  of  these  figures,  which  are 
unlike  the  Rapa-Nui  type  or  indeed  unlike  most 
examples  of  the  inferior  Australasian  type. 

Andaman  Islands. 

Some  bits  of  broken  pottery^®^  from  the  Andaman 
Islands,  show  certain  wavy  and  zigzag  patterns  of 
lines.  I  have  seen  nothing  else  resembling  art  work 
from  there.^®®  I  feel  uncertain  therefore,  at  the  pres- 
ent time,  whether  these  islands,  as  well  as  the  Nico- 
bars,  are  connected  artistically  principally  with  the 
mainland  of  Asia,  or  with  the  Australasian  islands, 
but  I  believe  it  is  with  the  latter. 

Sumatra. 

Some  of  the  art  of  Sumatra  is  of  the  Rapa-Nui 
type  of  Australasian  art.  There  are  some  small 
wood  carvings  from  there, ^^''  some  of  which  are  a 
little  more  advanced  than  others.  Two  little  carved 
heads  from  the  Batta  tribe  strongly  resemble  the 
Rapa-Nui  heads.  This  is  the'  most  westerly  place 
apparently  where  the  Australasian  Rapa-Nui  type 
is  found,  and  I  feel  sure  that  the  carvers  of  these 
heads  are  blood  relations  of  the  artists  of  Hawaii 
and  Rapa-Nui. 

"**  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 

^®®  There  are  no  art  specimens  in  the  British  Museum,  1905. 

A  de  Quatrefages:  The  Pygmies,  1895. 

C.   B.  Kloss:    In  the  Andamans  and  Nicobars,    1903. 

»"  British  Mus. 


AUSTRALASIAN    ART.  141 

Borneo. 

Some  of  the  art  from  Borneo  is  decidedly  of  an  I 
inferior  Australasian  type.^^^     In  London  there  are 
some  utterly  shapeless  wooden  figures  about  thirty 
centimeters  high  from  Barawan,  on  the  Tin  jar  River, 
Sarawak.     From  the  Kayans,  there  are  some  rather, 
nicely  decorated  pipes  and  other  objects. 

The  most  extensive  collection  of  specimens  from 
Borneo  I  have  seen  is  the  one  in  Philadelphia^®^ 
brought  back  by  Dr.  Fumess  and  Dr.  Hiller.^''^ 
There  are  some  little  wooden  effigies  of  persons  to 
whom  harm  is  wished,  and  as  the  wood  decays  or  is 
eaten  by  insects  the  body  of  the  subject  is  supposed 
to  waste  away  and  die.  These  and  some  other 
small  wooden  figures  are  infantile,  primitive  art.  I 
Some  poles  with  several  figures  or  heads  carved  one 
over  the  other,  which  are  set  up  in  front  of  a  house 
after  a  successfiil  head  himt  to  show  how  many 
persons  were  killed,  are  poor  work  and  inferior  to 
Alaska  totem  poles,  to  which,  however,  they  are,  as 
an  art  form,  almost  similar.  There  are  some  masks 
worn  by  medicine  men  and  by  dancers  during 
festivities,  painted  with  w];iite  and  black,  of  a  pro- 
nounced Australasian  type.  One  specimen,  how- 
ever, from  the  Kayans,  the  figurehead  of  a  canoe 

^®^  British  Mus.  An  inscription  says  the  natives  are  Pagans  of 
Malay  stock,  with  yellowish  skins. 

""  Univ.  of  Penna.  Mus.  Arch. 

""  Dr.  Furness  and  Dr.  Hiller:  The  Home  Life  of  Borneo  Head 
Hunters,  1902. 


142  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

representing  a  crocodile's  head  holding  in  the  open 
jaws  a  sitting  monkey,  is  distinctly  good.  Many 
photographs  from  Borneo  show  the  prevalence  of  the 
fearfully  elongated  earlobe,  a  hideous  method  of  beau- 
tifying the  person  which  must  have  extended  from 
about  Baluchistan  to  Rapa-Nui,  and  possibly  to  Korea 
and  Mexico,  so  that  Borneo  was  somewhere  near  the 
center  of  the  elongated  ear's  "sphere  of  influence." 

New  Guinea  or  Papua. 

From  New  Guinea,  there  are  many  wooden  figures, 
from  about  twenty  to  eighty  centimeters  high.^^^ 
There  is  almost  no  artistic  beauty  in  these  figures, 
whose  eyes  are  colored  white.  They  are  shapeless  and 
grotesque,  with  a  tendency  to  the  Rapa-Nui  shape. 
Some  decorations  on  paddles,  bark  belts,  and  other 
objects  are  rather  good.  Some  of  the  art  of  New 
Guinea  may  be  considered  as  an  inferior  develop- 
ment of  the  Rapa-Nui  type  of  Australasian  art.^^^ 

Torres  Strait  Islands. 

The  islanders  of  Torres  Strait  make  some 
sculptures.     Their  human  figurines  are  poor.     Some 

^''^  British  Mus.  An  inscription  says  the  natives  are  a  dark  skinned, 
woolly  haired  people  with  curved  noses. 

^'2  Dr.  Alfred  C.  Haddon,  in  a  lecture  delivered  November  2,1906, 
before  the  American  Philosophical  Society,  stated  that  there  were 
three  or  four  different  kinds  of  art  in  British  New  Guinea,  and  that 
these  coincided  with  differences  in  races,  in  languages,  in  customs, 
etc.  He  thought  some  of  the  art  was  undoubtedly  totemistic,  and, 
on  the  authority  of  a  missionary,  that  some  of  the  drawings  of 
figures  might  have  some  relation  to  native  gods.  Dr.  Haddon  is 
such  an  accurate  observer,  and  such  a  remarkably  fair  and  impartial 
scientist,  that  every  statement  he  makes  carries  great  ^weight, 


AUSTRALASIAN    ART.  143 

drawings  of  animals  are  fairly  good.^^^  From  Jervis 
Island,  some  masks  imitating  alligators  and  made 
out  of  tortoise  shell  are  clever,  barbarous  art. 

Australia. 

The  natives  of  Australia  have  barely,  if  indeed 
as  yet  entirely,  emerged  from  a  stone  period.  There 
are  niimerous  specimens  of  chipped  stone  and  pol- 
ished stone  axes  and  spear  heads  from  there.^^* 
Some  shells,  wooden  objects,  shields  have  certain 
rough  drawings,  almost  patterns,  on  them,  but  I 
have  seen  no  real  art  from  Australia,  no  sculptures, 
nor  any  work  with  real  artistic  qualities.^^^ 

New  Britain. 

New  Britain  is  a  group  of  islands  next  to  New 
Ireland,  and  yet  the  art  is  quite  different.  The  art 
of  New  Britain  certainly  belongs  to  the  inferior 
Australasian  type^^^.  There  are  from  there  some 
figures  carved  in  chalk,  from  thirty  to  fifty  centi- 
meters high.  They  are  uncompromisingly  nude, 
almost  shapeless,  and  little  better  than  symbols. 
Altho  these  attempts  at  art  are  almost  grotesque, 
yet  there  is  something  naive  about  them,  which 
redeems  them  from  being  called  absolutely  bad. 

^"  British  Mus.     From  Professor  Alfred  C.  Haddon. 

"*  British  Mus. 

*'*  Mr.  Samuel  L.  Clemens,  Following  the  Eqtuitor,  Chapter  XXII., 
says  that  the  natives  of  Australia  make  drawings  which  are  accurate 
in  form,  attitude,  carriage,  and  which  have  spirit  and  expression. 

"^  British  Mus.  An  inscription  says  the  natives  are  dark  skinned 
Melanesians  in  a  stone  period. 


144  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

New  Ireland. 

New  Ireland  art^^^  is  decidedly  original.  A  mag- 
nificent set  of  carved  wood  figures,  about  one  meter 
high,  are  supposed  to  be  ancestral  figures.  They 
are  painted  red,  white  and  black.  They  are  carved 
into  extraordinary  shapes;  some  have  huge  tusks, 
like  babiroussas;  others  have  birds  attached  to 
them.  There  are  also  some  smaller  figures,  carv- 
ings of  several  birds,  and  a  number  of  dancing 
masks.  Altho  there  is  little  sense  of  proportion 
and  no  anatomical  accuracy  in  these  figures,  yet 
the  art  of  New  Ireland  must  be  considered  as  re- 
markable. At  first  it  seems  grotesque,  but  soon 
one  sees  much  feeling  for  color  and  decoration. 
Not  the  least  interesting  fact  about  it  is,  that  in 
many  ways  it  is  quite  unlike  Rapa-Nui,  New  Zea- 
land or  Hawaii  art,  and  this  would  tend  to  show 
that  there  were  perhaps  more  than  two  branches  of 
art  in  the  Pacific  Islands.  It  may  be  only  a  wild 
fancy,  but  somehow  these  New  Ireland  figures  re- 
mind me  of  the  suits  of  lacquered  armor,  with 
strange  variegated  ornamentation,  which  were  for- 
merly worn  by  the  Japanese  Samurai. 
Solomon  Islands. 

The  Solomon  Islanders^''®  made  many  rather  small 
figtu-es  of  wood  and  carved  coral.     The  figures  are 

*^^  British  Mus.  An  inscription  says  New  Ireland  is  inhabited  by 
dark  skinned  Melanesians,  using  stone  implements  before  the  advent 
of  Europeans. 

"*  British  Mus.  A  notice  says  the  natives  are  frizzly  haired,  dark 
skinned  people  who  used  stone  implements  and  made  pottery. 


AUSTRALASIAN    ART.  145 

rather  grotesque  with  the  Rapa-Nui  type  of  head. 
There  are  some  good  decorations  on  canoe  paddles. 

New  Hebrides. 

From  the  New  Hebrides^^®  come  some  rather  gro- 
tesque wooden  figures,  which  in  some  places,  es- 
pecially on  the  face,  are  daubed  over  with  red  and 
blue  streaks. 

New  Caledonia. 

From  New  Caledonia^^  there  are  several  small 
rather  grotesque  wooden  figures.  These  belong  to 
the  inferior  type  of  Australasian  art. 

New  Zealand. 

New  Zealand  was  formerly  in  a  stone  period,  and 
many  polished  stone  axes,  some  of  jade,  were  found 
there.^*^  There  are  a  good  many  wooden  figures; 
from  small  ones  up  to  some  about  one  and  a  half 
meters  high.  The  head  is  usually  the  part  best 
done;  often  there  are  shell  eyes;  sometimes  the 
tongue  hangs  out.  The  back  of  the  head  is  gen- 
erally almost  absent,  but  there  is  a  good  high  fore- 
head. In  several  cases  some  carved  pilasters  about 
one  and  a  half  meters  high,  have  several  heads  one 
over  the  other,  in  the  manner  of  Alaska  totem  poles. 

""  British  Mus. 

^^°  British  Mus.  An  inscription  says  the  natives  are  dark  skinned 
Melanesians. 

^^^  Univ.  of  Penna.  Mus.  Arch.  British  Mus.  An  inscription  says 
the  natives,  Maoris,  are  brown  skinned  Polynesians,  with  wavy  black 
hair. 


146  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

The  bodies  of  the  different  figures  are  small  and 
shapeless,  in  fact,  the  big  head  and  small  body  and 
arms  have  about  the  same  relative  sizes  to  each 
other  as  some  of  the  figures  from  the  Kongo  and 
Matabeleland  have.  A  characteristic  figure  has  a 
big  head  with  small  eyes,  a  small  mouth,  and  a  round, 
knobby  button  of  a  nose,  little  arms  and  hands,  two 
uprights  below  for  legs,  while  the  face  and  arms  are 
covered  with  lines  which  appear  to  be  tattoo  marks. 

There  is  some  real  art  feeling  in  New  Zealand 
art,  which  is  one  of  the  most  developed  forms  of 
Australasian  art.  The  heads  have  some  of  the 
characteristics  and  somewhat  resemble  the  heads 
from  Rapa-Nui  and  Hawaii,  while  the  undersized 
ill  formed  bodies  show  a  distinct  art  similarity  to 
some  of  the  art  from  Central  and  South  Africa. 
Fiji  Islands. 

From  the  Fiji  Islands^^^  I  have  seen  some  polished 
stone  axes,  but  no  specimens  of  art. 
Tonga  (Friendly)  Islands. 

From  the   Tonga   Islands^^^  I  have  seen  no  art 
specimens. 
Samoa  (Navigator's)  Islands. 

From  the  Samoan  Islands^^*  I  have  seen  a  few 
small  wooden  rather  grotesque  figures.     They  seem 

^^^  British  Mus.  A  notice  says  the  natives  are  dark  skinned  Me- 
lanesians,  formerly  in  a  stone  period  but   skilful  makers  of  pottery. 

^^^  British  Mus.  The  inscription  says  the  natives  are  brown  skinned 
Polynesians,  who  had  stone  implements  but  no  pottery. 

^^*  British  Mus.  The  notice  says  the  natives  are  brown  skinned 
Polynesians  who  had  stone  implements  but  no  pottery. 


AUSTRALASIAN    ART.  147 

to    belong    to    the   inferior   type   of    Australasian 
art. 

Hawaii.  ' 

From  the  Hawaiian  Islands  comes  some  very  origi- 
nal art.^^  This  is  the  heads  called  war  gods,  which 
were  carried  into  battle  by  the  so  called  priests. 
They  are  made  of  wickerwork  covered  with  netting 
and  feathers.  The  eyes  are  usually  of  pearl  shell  with 
wooden  pupils,  and  the  teeth  are  taken  from  dogs. 
The  heads  are  about  fifty  centimeters  high;  they 
have  long  necks  and  almost  no  back  to  the  head. 
In  two  cases  there  are  low  foreheads;  in  two  other 
cases  there  are  high  foreheads,  but  these  heads 
are  narrow  sideways.  There  is  little  which  can  be 
called  beautiful  about  these  heads  except  the  colors; 
in  the  feather  work  and  in  this  feather  work  the' 
Hawaiians  appear  to  be  unique.  There  is  a  strong 
artistic  resemblance  between  these  heads  and  those 
from  Rapa-Nui,  too  strong  to  be  accidental.  A 
wooden  statue,  about  one  and  a  half  meters  high, 
is  of  the  same  type  as  statues  from  New  Zealand. 

Marquesas  Islands. 

From  the  Marquesas  Islands^^®  I  have  seen  some 
polished  stone  implements  and  a  little  decorative  art, 
not  enough  to  judge  the  type  with  certainty,  but  it 
probably  belongs  to  an  inferior  Australasian  type. 

"5  British  Mus, 

^*®  British  Mus.  The  inscription  says  the  natives  are  brown  skinned 
Polynesians  in  a  stone  period. 


148  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

Hervey  Islands. 

The  Hervey  Islanders^^^  have  some  art.  From 
Rarotonga  Island  there  are  several  figures  which 
are  rather  poor  specimens  of  an  immature  Austral- 
asian art.  Still  there  is  a  certain  originality,  more  or 
less  local,  about  some  Hervey  Island  figures.  From 
Rarutu  Island,  Austral  group,  comes  a  remarkable 
figure^^^  which  has  small  figures  which  stand  out  from 
it  carved  on  the  nose,  the  mouth,  the  ears,  the  eyes 
and  on  many  parts  of  the  body.  From  Hervey 
Island  there  is  a  somewhat  similar  figure,  with  the 
head  slightly  of  the  Rapa-Nui  type  and  with  three 
small  figures  carved  on  the  top  of  the  chest. ^^^  These 
figures  remind  me  in  idea,  but  not  in  technic,  of 
the  hideous  statue  of  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,^^° 
whose  whole  front  part  of  the  trunk  is  covered 
with  hanging  bosoms. 

Tahiti. 

From  the  Tahitian  or  Society  Islands, ^^^  there  are 
some  stone  implements  and  some  grotesque  wooden 
figures.  These  belong  to  the  inferior  Australasian 
type. 

^87  British  Mus.  The  inscription  says  that  most  of  these  Pacific 
peoples  carved  wood  without  the  use  of  metal  tools.  The  Hervey 
Islanders  were  formeriy  in  a  stone  period. 

^^^  British  Mus.  An  inscription  says  this  is  a  supposed  deity  of 
Polynesia,  whose  name  is  said  to  be  "Tangaroa-Upao-Vahu." 

^*®  British  Mus.  An  inscription  says  this  is  supposed  to  be  a  deity 
called  "Te  Rongo,"  and  his  three  sons. 

**'*  Naples  Mus. 

*®^  British  Mus.  A  notice  says  the  natives  are  brown  skinned  Poly- 
nesians with  black  wavy  hair. 


AUSTRALASIAN    ART.  149 

Rapa-Nui  {Easter  Island). 

In  spite  of  its  distance  from  other  lands,  much  art 
was  made  on  Rapa-Nui.  There  are  a  number  of 
specimens  of  this  art  in  museums. ^^^  Many  of  the 
specimens  in  London  were  presented  to  the  British 
Museum  by  my  friend,  Mr.  Victor  Strauss  Frank, ^-^ 
who  spent  some  weeks  at  Rapa-Nui  several  years 
ago. 

The  art  of  Rapa-Nui  takes  mainly  the  form  of 
sculptures  of  humans,  big  ones  of  stone,  and  small 
ones  of  wood. 

In  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  Paris,^^  is  a  great  head 
from  Rapa-Nui.  I  had  to  hunt  for  it,  as  the  guar- 
diens  did  not  seem  to  know  where  it  was.  Finally 
I  found  it  under  a  shed,  surrounded  by  a  lot  of 
scrap  iron  junk,  or  as  a  more  intelligent  guardten 
expressed  it,  "dans  un  endroit  oil,  Von  met  les  vieux 
rosstgnols."  I  protested  about  this  matter  in  a 
letter  to  the  Paris  Herald  of  May  25,  1905,  say- 
ing that  this  head  should  be  placed  in  the  Louvre. 
The  head  is  about  one  meter  eighty  centimeters 
high.  It  has  a  large  squarish  nose;  great  deeply 
carved  cavernous  eyes ;  a  tiny  slit  of  a  mouth  with  a 

^^^  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.  Univ.  of  Penna.  Mus.  Arch.  Jardin  des  Plantes, 
Paris.  British  Mus.  A  notice  saj'^s  that  the  people  of  Easter  Island 
were  Polynesians,  and  that  there  were  found  there  stone  buildings 
and  some  stone  terraces  on  which  were  monoliths. 

"3  Victor  Strauss  Frank  :  "A  Trip  to  Easter  Island:"  Journal  of 
the  Franklin  Institute,  1906,  Vol.  CLXII.,  pp.  179-199. 

"*  1905.  Brought  to  France  in  1871.  See  Captain  Jvdien  Viaud: 
"L'ile  de  Paques":  Reflets  sur  la  Sombre  Route,  Paris,  1899. 


150  COMPARATIVE   ART» 

strongly  determined  expression,  a  square  chin  and 
long,  not  much  worked  out  ears.  There  is  scarcely 
any  head  back  of  the  ears  and  a  low  forehead,  so 
that  it  almost  seems  as  tho  the  head  was  intended 
only  to  be  looked  at  from  the  front.  The  nose,  the 
eyes  and  the  mouth  are  much  modelled.  This  head 
is  dignified  and  it  seems  incredible  that  it  should 
have  been  carved,  as  it  must  have  been,  with  stone 
implements. 

In  London^®^  there  are  two  stone  heads.  These 
heads  are  about  sixty  to  seventy  centimeters  high, 
they  have  great  hollow  eyes  and  a  big  nose.  The 
mouth  is  much  larger  than  in  the  Paris  head, 
decidedly  negroid  in  type.  There  is  scarcely  any 
forehead  or  back  to  the  heads. 

In  Washington^^®  there  is  a  big  stone  head,  and 
also  a  big  male  statue,  as  far  down  as  the  waist. 
This  one  wears  a  high  stone  cap,  which  has  no  brim 
nor  eye  shade,  and  is  shaped  somewhat  like  a  Persian 
fur  cap.  This  statue  is  thin  from  front  to  back,  and 
this  seems  a  usual  characteristic  of  the  art.  The 
body  is  only  a  little  longer  than  the  head,  the  arms 
are  rather  diminutive,  and  the  hands  are  relatively 
tiny,  with  enormously  long  fingers,  clasped  over  the 


"'  British  Mus.  Brought  to  England  on  H.  M.  S.  "Topaze"  in 
1869.  One  is  said  to  be  the  statue  of  "Hoa-Haka-Ntina-Ia, ' '  a  Rapa- 
Nui  chief  probably. 

"«  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 

Wm.  J.  Thompson:  "The  Ethnology  and  Antiquity  of  Easter 
Island":  Report  United  States  National  Museum,  1889. 


AUSTRALASIAN    ART.  I5l 

abdomen.      The  proportions  are  somewhat  those  of 
African  art. 

The  small  wooden  figures  from  Rapa-Nui  are 
generally  from  thirty  to  sixty  centimeters  high. 
They  are  usually  unnaturally  thin.  On  some  of 
them  the  ribs  appear,  also  the  lower  part  of  the 
breast  bone,  imder  which  there  is  a  hollow,  which 
might  be  supposed  to  represent  the  inside  of  the 
stomach,  only  that  the  navel  is  apparent.  This 
intense  thinness  is  doubtless  due  to  the  natives 
acquiring  this  characteristic  in  times  of  famine. 
There  is  no  back  to  the  head  to  speak  of,  and  a 
small  skull  with  a  low  forehead.  The  eyes  are  inset 
with  some  kind  of  stone,  and  there  are  enormous 
ears  with  the  lobes  distended  by  a  weight.  On 
some  of  these  small  figures,  there  is  a  tall  head, 
moderate  body,  and  small  legs,  that  is  the  pro- 
portions are  really  African. 

This  Rapa-Nui  art  is  among  the  best  of  the 
Pacific  arts.  It  resembles  somewhat  New  Zea- 
land art,  and  it  has  a  strong  family  likeness  to  the 
feathered  figures  from  Hawaii.  The  shape  of  the 
heads  from  Hawaii  and  Rapa-Nui,  with  lack  of 
back  and  top,  are  so  similar  that  the  artistic  generic 
impulse  is  unmistakable.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
two  big  stone  heads  in  Washington  are  more  like 
Mexican  art,  than  the  latter  is  like  Egyptian  or 
Hindu  art.  Mrs.  Balch,  however,  thought  that 
the  big  stone  heads  in  London,  have  a  vague  re- 


152  COMPARATIVE   ART 

semblance  to  Egyptian  art.  In  any  case,  how- 
ever, Rapa-Nui  art  always  has,  unintentionally, 
a  decided  element  of  grotesque. 

Eskimo  Art. 

On  the  American  continent,  art  is  found  pretty 
much  from  the  Arctic  Ocean  to  the  Strait  of  Mag- 
alhaes.  There  are  several  branches  of  art  in  Amer- 
ica, and  it  might  perhaps  be  divided  into  five  types, 
namely:  Eskimo  art;  West  North  Amerind  art; 
East  North  Amerind  art;  Central  and  West  South 
Amerind  art;  and  East  South  Amerind  art.  Most 
of  this  art  is  so  individual,  that  it  is  surely  prin- 
cipally autochthonous.  At  the  same  time.  East 
North  Amerind  art  has  certain  qualities  which 
show  certain  resemblances  to  the  art  of  Europe; 
while  West  North  Amerind  art  has  some  decided 
resemblances  to  the  arts  of  Southeast  Asia  and 
of  Australasia,  and  Central  Amerind  art  has  some 
of  these  resemblances,  but  in  a  lesser  degree.  It 
seems  probable  therefore  that  Amerind  art,  altho 
mainly  autochthonous,  yet  received  artistic  im- 
pulsions from  other  shores,  possibly  both  to  the 
east  and  the  west. 

In  Arctic  America  and  Arctic  Asia,  to  use  the 
most  general  geographical  terms  possible,  we  find 
an  art  which  is  exceedingly  individual.  This  is 
the  art  of  the  Innuits  or  Eskimo  in  Greenland, 
Labrador,  Alaska,  and  Siberia.     Altho  the  art  of 


ESKIMO    ART.  153 

each  locality  varies  somewhat  from  that  of  all  the 
other  tribes,  still  it  is  unquestionably  all  one  art. 
This  art  does  not  resemble  in  the  least  Kaldean, 
Egyptian,  Greek  or  Afro-Australasian  art,  but  it 
resembles  closely  the  art  of  the  Chukchees,  Kor- 
aks  and  Yakaghirs  in  Eastern  Siberia,  somewhat 
the  art  of  one  or  two  tribes  in  Alaska  and  some 
Zimi  art,  and  it  has  certain  resemblances  to 
Pleistokene,  to  Bushman,  and  to  East-Asiatic  art. 

The  Eskimo  were  only  recently  in  a  stone  age,  t 
for  many  chipped  stone  and  bone  as  well  as  iron 
implements  come  from  the  Eskimos  of  Point  Bar- 
row and  Greenland. ^^^  Friends  of  mine  who  were 
members  of  various  arctic  expeditions,  Professor 
Angelo  Heilprin,  Mr.  Henry  G.  Bryant,  Mr.  Frank 
W.  Stokes  and  others,  say  that  the  North  Green- 
land Eskimo  are  a  thoroly  developed  race  of 
men  and  women  with  many  fine  traits  of  char-| 
acter.  Undoubtedly  they  are  of  the  same  race 
as  the  Alaska  Eskimo,  even  if  there  are  some  local 
differences.  Mr.  Frank  H.  Gushing  once  called' 
my  attention  to  an  ethnological  point  which  I  wish 
to  record  as  coming  from  this  distinguished  arch- 
eologist.  He  thought  that  the  Eskimo  had  the 
same  rather  elongated  eye  as  the  Mongol  races 
and  he  thought  this  elongated  eye  might  be  the 

"' U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.  Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist.  British  Mus.  An 
inscription  says  the  Eskimo  are  short,  swarthy  people  of  Mongoloid 
appearance. 


154  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

result  of  having  to  meet  conditions  where  there 
was  much  snow,  in  fact  he  called  them  "snow  eyes." 
Some  big  photographs  of  Eskimo^^^  show  a  pro- 
nounced yellow  type  with  the  snow  eye. 

My  first  acquaintance  with  Eskimo  art  was  in 
the  month  of  September,  1893,  when  the  New- 
foundland steam  whaler  "Falcon"  steamed  up 
the  Delaware  River  with  the  members  of  the  second 
Peary  expedition  on  board.  I  went  down  with 
some  other  persons  on  a  tug  to  meet  her,  and  on 
the  way  up  the  river,  I  received  as  a  gift  from  Dr. 
Vincent,  surgeon  of  the  expedition,  four  little 
carvings,  which  he  had  obtained  from  the  Eskimo 
of  Inglefield  Gulf,  Greenland,  and  which  I  pre- 
sented to  the  Musetmi  of  Archeology  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Pennsylvania.  At  that  time  they  were 
quite  perfect,  but  unfortunately  they  have  since 
been  somewhat  damaged.  They  are  a  man,  a 
woman,  a  dog  and  a  seal.  They  are  carved  out 
of  walrus  ivory,  probably  with  a  common  sailor's 
knife:  not  the  best  of  sculptural  tools.  The  figures 
are  rough  and  small,  each  of  them  being  about 
two  centimeters  long.  The  sense  of  proportion  is 
noteworthy.  In  the  standing  figures  of  the  man 
and  woman,  the  feet  are  tiny,  in  exact  relation  to 
the  rest  of  the  figure,  yet  despite  the  minute  size 
of  the  feet,   the   center  of  gravity  of  the   figures 

"«  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


I' 


,      ESKIMO    ART.  155 

is  SO  correct  that,  when  I  first  got  them,  the  man 
and  woman  stood  up  without  any  difficulty  on  a 
smooth  surface.  And  I  think  anyone  who  has 
tried  seriously  to  model  a  clay  figure  and  who 
knows  how  hard  it  is  for  a  beginner  to  poise  a 
figure  on  its  feet,  must  appreciate  that  some  of 
these  untaught  Eskimo  have  a  certain  gift  of  ob- 
servation. 

I  am  uncertain  whether  many  or  only  a  few  of 
the  Eskimo  of  North  Greenland  can  sculpt  these 
figures.  Dr.  A.  E.  Ortman,  who  went  in  1899  on 
the  "Diana"  to  Smith  Soimd  and  Inglefield  Gulf, 
told  me  he  thought  the  art  faculty  among  them 
was  limited  to  certain  individuals,  altho,  as  their 
carving  is  done  principally  in  the  winter  months, 
when  time  hangs  heavy  on  their  hands,  he  could 
not  say  how  many  do  it.  He  found,  however,  that 
these  carvings  take  a  long  time,  for  one  Eskimo, 
a  cripple,  started  to  carve  a  figure  for  him,  and 
several  weeks  afterwards,  when  he  left,  the  figure 
was  not  finished. 

From  the  Innuits  of  Alaska  and  Labrador  also^^^ 
come  some  rough  and  rather  shapeless  carvings 
and  drawings  on  walrus  ivory,  on  bone  and  on  horn. 
The  drawings  represent  reindeer,  boats,  bears,  men, 
wahus,  seals,  and  whales.  They  look  rather  as  if 
they  were  picture  writings  than  as  if  they  were  in- 

""  Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist.     U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.     British  Mus. 


156  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

tended  to  be  purely  pictorial  works  of  art.  The 
carved  humans  are  all  bald,  that  is,  no  hair  on  the 
head  is  represented.  There  is  one  curious  Janus- 
like double  head. 

From  northeastern  Siberia,  there  are  some  Eskimo 
bone  carvings^^°  which  are  just  like  Greenland  figures. 

The  art  of  the  Eskimo  is  purely  an  art  of  obser- 
vation. There  is  no  symbolism;  it  is  purely  sculp- 
tural or  pictorial  motive.  These  northern  tribes 
are  impelled  by  their  innate  sense  of  form  to  attempt 
to  reproduce  the  human  beings  and  the  animals 
which  they  see  in  their  daily  life,  and  the  little 
figures  which  they  carve  show  that  some  of  them 
have  a  certain  inborn  aptitude  for  art. 

Eskimo  art  has  a  certain  individuality,  and  does 
not  look  quite  like  any  other  art.  The  art  of  the 
Chukchee,  Korak,  and  Yakaghir  tribes  of  Eastern 
Siberia,  is  almost  the  same  art.  Eskimo  art  also 
resembles  closely,  but  less  so,  the  art  of  the  Tlinkits, 
Haidas  and  Kwakiutls  of  the  north  west  coast  of 
America  and  some  Zuni  and  Moki  art  from  Arizona. 
There  is  undoubtedly  a  great  similarity  in  the 
implements  of  the  Eskimo  and  of  the  Pleistokene 
men  of  central  Europe,  and  there  is  a  resemblance 
also  between  their  art,  with  the  important  difference 
that  all  Eskimo  art,  and  the  drawings  especially, 
are  distinctly  inferior  to  the  Pleistokene  art  of  south 

^"^  Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist.     Collected  by  Mr.  W.  Bogoras. 


ESKIMO   ART.  157 

western  Europe.  And  of  the  carvings  it  is  note- 
worthy that  the  humans  do  not  look  in  the  least 
like    Pleistokene   humans. 

West  North  Amerind  Art. 

Among  the  Amerinds,  west  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, from  Bering  Sea  to  northern  California,  there 
is  an  art  which  is  sufficiently  distinctive  to  be  classi- 
fied by  itself.  It  might  be  called  West  North 
Amerind  art.  It  includes  both  painting  and  sculp- 
ture, and  its  most  distinctive  feature  is  the  totem 
pole. 

Probably  all  the  tribes  of  the  Northwest  American 
coast,  the  Tlinkit,  the  Haida,  the  Tsimshian,  the 
Kwakiutl,  the  Nootka  of  Vancouver  Island,  make 
wood  carvings,  bone  carvings  and  masks.^"^  The 
Sakaptin,  State  of  Washington,^^^  make  paintings 
on  skins  and  ornament  baskets  with  patterns  in 
lines.  Some  of  the  art  of  some  of  these  tribes 
has  some   resemblance   to  the  art  of  the  Eskimo. 

From  the  Amerinds  of  the  Northwest  coast, 
there  are  many  statuettes  carved  in  wood  or 
ivory.^°^  Some  of  the  heads  give  the  North  Am- 
erind type  clearly,  while  some  suggest  the  South 
Pacific  type.  In  many  cases,  such  as  in  some 
specimens  from  the  Haida  and  Tlinkit,^"*  the  figures 

.    201  Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist.     U.  S.  Nat.  Mus, 
!    '»2  Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist. 

'"^  British  Mus. 

'"*  British  Mus.     U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


158  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

have  small,  undeveloped  legs,  such  as  are  found  in 
Afro -Australasian  sculptures.  These  West  North 
Amerind  statues  are  distinct  from  Australasian  or 
African  statues  and  yet  there  is  a  generic  resem- 
blance. 

There  are  some  small  black  wood  poles,  and  one 
sculpture  of  a  woman  and  a  baby,  which  are  bet- 
ter than  the  average. ^^^  Some  large  single  figures 
unquestionably  resemble  Mexican  sculpture  in  the 
expression  of  the  faces.  From  Queen  Charlotte 
Island  also  there  are  some  capital  pipe  bowls 
carved  out  of  slate. ^*^^  There  are  usually  several 
figures,  humans,  animals  or  birds,  one  behind  the 
other  in  a  row.  These  show  some  of  the  artistic 
qualities  seen  on  totem  poles,  except  that  they 
are  generally  further  moved  from  an  observa- 
tion art  stage  into  a  more  decorative  art  stage. 
These  also  have  a  distinctly  Central  Amerind  art 
type. 

A  form  of  decoration  used  sometimes  in  West 
North  Amerind  art,  is  a  big  single  eye,  looking 
solemnly  at  you,  and  this  same  big  eye  is  also  used 
sometimes  in  Central  Amerind  art. 

Some  of  the  smaller  sculptures  resemble  in  their 
quality  some  of  the  pipe  heads  carved  by  East  North 
Amerind  artists.  Some  carvings  on  rocks  also, 
representing  animals  and  birds,  have  been  foimd  on 

2»5  Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist. 
2»«  British  Mus. 


WEST   NORTH    AMERIND   ART.  159 

the  northwest  coast.^^''  These  are  almost  formless, 
show  an  infantile  state  of  art  instinct,  and  somewhat 
resemble  East  North  Amerind  art. 

There  are  many  ceremonial  masks  carved  in 
wood.^*^^  Many  of  these  are  painted  wholly  or  par- 
tially. Some  of  these  masks  have  unquestionably 
a  resemblance  to  Japanese  theatrical  masks  and 
also  to  some  masks  from  Australasia.  A  mask 
from  the  Tlinkits^^^  representing  a  bird's  head  of 
immense  size,  makes  one  think  of  Bushman  hunting 
disguises  and  of  Egyptian  animal  headed  monsters. 

The  most   important   and   distinctive   specimens  I 
of  West  North  Amerind   art   are  the   totem  poles,  j 
Some  of  the  best  I  have  seen  are  at  Fort  Wr angel,  j 
Alaska,  and  as  a  rule  they  are  of  plain  wood,  un-j 
painted  and  unvarnished.     Some  few  of  them,  how-  i 
ever,  are  painted  with  rather  bright  colors,   such 
as  emerald  green  and  vermilion.     The  one  on  the' 
square  at  Seattle  is  the  finest  one  of  this  kind  I 
have  seen.     It  is  probable  that  these  colors  are  a 
result  of  the  Russian  occupation  of  Alaska,  and  if 
so,  it  is  an  instance  of  one  art  affecting  another  art, 
and  it  would  show  that  Byzantine  art  has  borne  an 
influence  clean  across  Asia  into  North  America. 

The  forms  of  the  animals,  the  frogs,  the  bears,/ 
the  eagles,  carved  on  the  totem  poles  are  distinctly 

^"^  Harper's  Weekly,  New  York,  Saturday,  May  2,  1903. 
^o"  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.     British  Mus. 
2<*»  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


160  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

good,  and  in  most  instances,  the  individual  forms 
resemble  Central  Amerind  art  rather  closely  in  their 
manner.  But  the  totem  pole  itself  as  an  art  form,  as 
far  as  I  know,  is  unknown  in  America  anywhere 
east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  or  south  of  California. 

Two  great  totem  poles  from  the  hook  of  Alaska^^" 
have  faces  carved  on  them,  which,  when  compared 
with  some  faces  carved  on  poles  from  New  Zea- 
land^^^  show  a  distinctly  similar  artistic  impulse. 
The  same  is  true  of  a  great  Alaska  totem  pole^^^ 
which  has  ten  totems  one  over  the  other.  Those 
of  men's  heads,  with  their  tongues  poked  out,  un- 
questionably resemble  New  Zealand  heads.  These 
Alaska  totem  poles  and  the  New  Zealand  posts  have 
a  distinct  similarity  simply  as  posts,  and  it  seems  to 
me  that  both  their  form  and  their  artistic  manner  are 
too  similar  for  merely  a  coincidence.  The  people 
who  carved  these  poles  must  at  some  time,  even  if  it 
were  thousands  of  years  apart,  have  been  related. 

Some  of  the  heads  from  Alaska  with  the  tongues 
poked  out  also  slightly  resemble  the  heads  on  Korean 
guide  posts:  the  eyes,  however,  do  not  have  the 
snow  eye  slant  noticeable  in  the  Korean  heads. 
The  position  and  general  appearance  of  the  totem 
poles  also  bear  a  similarity  to  the  poles  sometimes 
placed  before  the  houses  of  the  Kayans  of  Borneo, 


^"  Univ.  of  Penna.  Mus.  Arch. 
^'^  Univ.  of  Penna.  Mus.  Arch. 
"2  u.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


WEST   NORTH    AMERIND   ART.  161 

and,  what  is  still  more  remarkable,  to  some  of  the 
posts  carved  in  Nigeria. 

In  fact,  the  art  form  of  posts  or  poles  with  sev- 
eral sculptures  carved  on  them,  one  over  the  other, 
stretches  from  West  North  America,  across  Austra- 
lasia, into  West  Central  Africa.  It  is  not  found  among 
White  races  at  all,  but  among  races  either  of  Black 
or  Yellow^  stock.  It  shows  intercourse  and  possibly 
blood  relationship  among  tribes  living,  in  many  cases, 
far  apart,  and  from  its  geographical  distribution  I 
infer,  at  present,  that  the  art  form  of  the  sculptured 
post  among  any  people  is  a  tolerably  safe  proof  of 
at  least  some  Negro  blood  among  its  ancestry. 

When  we  consider  all  these  various  resemblances, 
it  seems  as  if  West  North  Amerind  art  was  scarcely 
ptirely  autochthonous.  It  seems  as  if  several  dif- 
ferent arts  met  on  this  coast.  There  is  some  East 
North  Amerind,  some  Central  Amerind,  a  little 
Eskimo,  some  Australasian  and  some  Japanese  and 
perhaps  Korean  art  influence.  And  the  ethnologi- 
cal significance  of  these  resemblances  seems  to  be 
that  whether  some  of  the  West  North  Amerinds  are 
indigenous  to  America  or  not,  at  least  there  certainly 
must  have  been  some  communication  across  the 
Pacific  before  the  arrival  of  the  Europeans. 

East  North  Amerind  Art. 

East  North  Amerind  art  seems  to  be  largely 
autochthonous.     Most  of    its  examples  are  either 


162  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

pictographs  or  else  they  are  decorative  work.  Its 
quality  or  style,  whilst  rather  infantile,  is  decid- 
edly distinctive,  altho  it  resembles  in  some  re- 
spects what  would  appear  to  be  the  autochthonous 
qualities  of  West  North  Amerind  and  Central  Amer- 
ind art.  This  art  extended  east  of  the  Rockies  over 
pretty  much  the  whole  of  Canada  and  of  the  United 
States,  and  perhaps  it  still  holds  its  own  in  a  few 
spots  of  the  North  American  continent. 

This  art  takes  the  form  of  immature  drawings 
or  paintings,  of  small  carvings,  and  of  decorative 
designs.  There  are  no  large  examples  of  either 
pictorial  or  sculptural  work. 

The  decorative  work  is  applied  on  various  uten- 
sils or  garments,  in  the  shape  of  bead  work,  etc. 
Some  specimens  of  skin  garments  from  the  Black- 
feet,  for  instance,^^^  are  ornamented  with  some  simple 
and  elementary  decorations  in  lines.  A  pottery 
jug  found  at  Towanda,  Pennsylvania,  and  now  in 
the  possession  of  Mr.  John  Codding  of  that  place, 
is  ornamented  with  a  number  of  lines  unlike  those 
of  any  other  decorative  art  I  know. 

Among  carvings  by  the  East  North  Amerinds,  the 
most  important  by  their  nimiber  and  their  variety 
are  the  carved  heads  of  pipes  for  smoking  tobacco. 
They  come  from  all  over  the  United  States  :^^*  Maine, 
Vermont,   Massachusetts,   Connecticut,   New  York, 

"3  British  Mus. 

^^*  Smithsonian  Inst. 


,'         '  EAST   NORTH   AMERIND   ART.  163 

Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  Delaware,  Virginia,  the 
Carolinas,  Georgia,  Florida,  Ohio,  Illinois,  Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee,  Missouri,  Arkansas,  Louisiana, 
Mississippi,  Texas,  California.  In  other  words,  over 
a  great  part  of  North  America,  the  Amerinds  carved 
pipes  into  human  head  or  animal  shapes,  whose  de- 
signs show  a  very  similar  technic  and  art  impulse 
towards  a  certain  form  of  primal  sculpture.  None 
of  these  pipes  in  the  least  resemble  Eskimo  carv- 
ings, but  there  are  some  slight  resemblances  to 
some  West  North  Amerind  art. 

The  East  North  Amerinds  were  fond  of  adorning 
themselves  by  painting  themselves  with  garish  colors. 
Among  various  tribes  I  have  seen,  the  Cheyennes 
and  Arapahoes  especially,  I  noticed  that  bright  red 
seemed  to  be  the  favorite  hue,  and  I  heard  at  Saint 
Petersbtirg  that  the  Russian  moujiks  look  on  red 
as  the  most  beautiful  of  colors,  and,  in  fact,  the  word 
red  and  the  word  beautiful  in  Russian  are  strikingly 
similar.  I  have  little  doubt  that  this  preference 
for  red  among  some  primitive  peoples  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  red,  vermilion  or  rose  madder,  is  the  most 
violent  of  colors,  the  one  which  produces  the  warmest 
tints  on  the  palette  and  the  one  which  has  the  most 
intense  chromatic  effect  on  the  eye. 

The  drawings  or  paintings  of  the  East  North 
Amerinds  are  usually  done  on  bison  robes  or  deer 
skins.  They  generally  represent  events  in  the  life  of 
the  owner.    There  are  usually  one  or  more  incidents 


164  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

on  each  skin,  and  each  one  is  represented  in  a 
separate  drawin^.^^®  There  is  almost  no  art  idea, 
almost  no  drawing,  and  absolutely  no  light  and 
shade,  perspective,  or  indeed  any  pictorial  qualities. 
The  figures  are  mere  signs  and  symbols. 

These  drawings  on  bison  skins  look  almost  like 
those  which  white  children  with  art  proclivities 
indulge  in.  The  head,  leg  and  shoulder  of  a  bison 
on  a  Comanche  shield^^®  look  like  a  most  primitive 
drawing  by  a  white  child:  as  art,  it  is  grotesque. 
An  owl  and  rainbow,  on  a  similar  Mandan  shield, 
show  the  same  characteristics.  The  humans  al- 
most always  have  the  faces  in  profile,  but  the 
general  proportion  of  the  figures  is  fair  and  resembles 
the  White  race  art  type  :  it  looks  like  evidence 
of  a  White  race  inroad. 

Some  big  photographs  ^^^  of  East  North  Amerinds 
suggest  to  me  the  type  and  facial  physiognomy  of 
a  White  not  a  Yellow  people,  and  the  eye  is 
not  the  Yellow  snow  eye.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  Amerinds  as  portrayed  by  the  distinguished 
artist  and  traveller  George  Catlin,^^^  whose  work,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  not  sufficiently  remembered.  He 
was  a  most  agreeable,  unassimiing  gentleman,  and 


*^^  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.  Amer.  Mus.  Nat.  Hist.  Univ.  of  Penna. 
Mus.  Arch. 

"«  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 

»"  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 

'*"  George  Catlin:  Illustrations  of  the  Manners,  Customs  &  Condi- 
tions of  the  North  American  Indians,  London,  Henry  G.  Bohm,  1866. 


EAST    NORTH    AMERIND    ART.  165 

his  pictiires,  writings  and  collections  will  remain 
the  greatest  monttment  of  the  Amerinds  who  lived 
in  North  America  when  the  buffalo,  the  elk,  the 
cougar,  the  antelope,  and  the  grizzly  still  ranged 
over  it. 

The  noteworthy  fact  from  the  ethnological  stand- 
point is  that  East  North  Amerind  art  has  none  of 
the  characteristics  of  either  a  Black  race  art  or  a 
Yellow  race  art,  but  some  of  a  White  race  art.  And 
the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  this  would  seem  to 
be  that  probably  the  Red  Amerind  is  an  almost  dis- 
tinct race. 

Central  Amerind  Art. 

Central  and  West  South  Amerind  art  blossoms 
out  in  Mexico,  extends  north  into  Arizona,  and 
south  thru  Guatemala,  Hondiu-as,  Nicaragua,  Costa 
Rica,  Colombia,  Ecuador,  Peru,  into  northern 
Chili.  It  might  be  called  Central  Amerind  art  for 
the  sake  of  brevity.  This  art,  with  its  pyramids, 
temples,  sculptures  and  bas-reliefs,  was  in  full  blast 
at  least  as  late  as  the  year  1520,  as  Cortez  and 
Pizarro  found  the  natives  of  Mexico  and  Peru  using 
their  temples.  When  this  art  began,  there  is  as  yet 
no  means  of  knowing.  Some  degraded  remnants 
still  survive  as  a  living  art,  as  for  instance  among  the 
Hopi  and  Zuni  of  Arizona.  Unquestionably  it  is 
mainly  of  native  growth  but  there  are  some  re- 
semblances between  some  of  its  monoliths,  temples 


166  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

and  sculptures  to  some  of  those  of  Southeastern 
Asia  and  Australasia. 

Both  chipped  stone  and  polished  stone  imple- 
ments come  from  all  these  Central  American  and 
West  South  American  countries,  from  Mexico, 
Honduras,  Guatemala,  etc.^^^ 

Central  Amerind  art  is  all  more  or  less  one  art, 
with  local  differences.  Tho  it  has  certain  slight 
resemblances  to  East  North  Amerind  art  and 
East  South  Amerind  art  and  stronger  ones  to 
West  North  Amerind  art,  yet  it  is  much  more  ad- 
vanced than  either  of  these,  and  almost  stands  by 
itself. 

Mexican  art  runs  to  squares.  This  square  type 
probably  originated  in  the  square  stones  used  for 
building,  and  became  conventionalized. 

The  architectural  and  art  remains  are  in  the 
shape  of  pyramids,  buildings,  sculptured  monoliths, 
statues,  bas-reliefs,  pottery,  and  hieroglyphs  or 
pictographs. 

The  pyramids  had  many  steps  on  their  sides, 
and  seem  generally  to  have  had  buildings,  probably 
temples,  on  their  tops.  In  this  respect  they  are 
different  from  Egyptian  pyramids,  which  are  struc- 
tures complete  in  themselves,  while  the  Central 
American  pyramids  were  simply  foundations  for 
the  temples.     An    illustration^^^  of    the    palace    at 

"'  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.     British  Mus. 

220  By  Mr.  Catherwood  in  Mr.  Stephens'  book. 


CENTRAL   AMERIND   ART.  167 

Palenque  shows  that  it  somewhat  resembles  the 
temples  of  Java  and  Cochin  China. 

Some  of  the  temples  are  probably  comparatively 
recent,  for  they  are  said  to  be  still  in  fairly  good 
repair  and  in  one  case  at  least,  wooden  beams 
have  been  found  at  UxmaP^^  in  a  perfect  state  of 
preservation.  Moreover  accounts  by  eye  witnesses^^^ 
speak  of  these  temples  and  buildings  as  in  use  in 
the  time  of  Cortez. 

It  seems  probable  that  Central  Amerind  art 
at  one  time  extended  into  the  Mississippi  and 
Ohio  valleys.  The  great  and  curious  motmds  and 
earth  works  found  in  many  parts  of  the  central 
United  States,  which  are  the  works  of  the  rather 
mysterious  race  whom  we  call  the  Moundbuilders, 
have  so  many  characteristics  in  common  with  the 
foimdation  mounds  of  Mexican  temples  and  edifices 
that  it  seems  probable  that  they  were  thrown  up  by 
the  same  people. ^^^  There  is  little  art  extant  from 
the  Moimdbuilders.  From  the  animal  mounds  in 
Wisconsin  come  some  shapeless  figures.^^^  A  cu- 
rious stone,  known  as  the  "Rattlesnake  disc"^^ 
from  Motmdville,  Hale  County,  Alabama,  on  which 
is   carved   a   hand  resembling  the  Arab  hand    of 

2"  Stephens. 

^^^  Bemal  Diaz  de  Castillo:  The  true  history  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico, 
translated  by  M.  Kea tinge,  1800. 

^^'E.  G.  Squier  and  E.  H.  Davis:  Ancient  Monuments  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi Valley,  1848. 

^^*  Casts,  Carnegie  Mus.,  Pittsbtirg. 

***  Smithsonian  Inst. 


168  COMPARATIVE    ART. 

"Fatma"  with  an  eye  in  the  palm  and  a  rattle- 
snake surrounding  the  hand,  is  very  Mexican  in 
its  art. 

The  monoliths^^®  vary  from  about  three  to  nine 
meters  in  height,  and  they  are  therefore  smaller,  as  a 
rule,  than  Egyptian  obelisks :  the  stone  may  have  had 
something  to  do  with  the  size.  They  are  ornamented 
with  well  sculptured  bas-reliefs  or  engravings. 
There  is  generally  one  great  full  face  in  the  center. 
Sometimes  these  are  dignified  and  rather  handsome ; 
as  a  rule  they  are  ugly.  The  ears  of  these  heads  are 
always  enormous,  like  those  of  the  Buddhas  and 
Rapa-Nui  statues,  but  rather  wide  than  long,  and 
the  hands  are  held  upward  below  the  face.  As  a 
rule  the  legs  and  feet  are  represented,  and  the 
figures  are  generally  standing,  wherein  they  differ 
from  the  Buddhas,  who  are  usually  seated.  In  most 
of  the  figures  the  feet  are  bare.  Some  of  these 
monoliths  a  little   resemble  Egyptian  figures. 

An  Aztec  monument  from  Mexico^^^  on  which  is  a 
sort  of  death's  head  in  the  center  with  a  number  of 
surrounding  pendant  snakes,  and  a  Maya  monument 
from  Quirigua,  Guatemala,^^^  on  which  is  a  head 
surrounded  by  a  lot  of  carvings  of  the  square  Mex- 
ican style,  seem  to  me  entirely  different  in  art 
quality  from  neighboring  Hindu  specimens.     While 

22*  Casts,   Amer.    Mus.    Nat.    Hist.  Univ.   of    Penna.   Mus.   Arch. 
U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 
"7  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 
"8  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


CENTRAL   AMERIND   ART.  169 

actually  comparing  the  two  side  by  side,  I  could 
not  see  any  real  resemblance  between  Mexican  and 
Hindu  art. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  large  Mexican  head,^^® 
about  sixty  centimeters  high,  resembles  rather 
strongly  Egyptian  art. 

There  are  many  stone  figures  from  Central  Amer- 
ica. ^^°  Some  old  stone  ones  from  the  River 
Pamico^^^  are  flat  and  archaic.  In  some  the 
feather  head  dresses  indicate  an  Amerind  origin. 
Some  heads  from  Copan,  Honduras,  are  more  elab- 
orate and  fairly  good  artistically.  A  stone  figure, 
carved  on  both  sides,  from  San  Augustine,  Colom- 
bia, has  some  of  the  characteristics  of  both  Mex- 
ican and  Peruvian  art.^^ 

There  are  many  bas-reliefs  in  stone  and  in  stucco. 
The  faces,  as  a  rule,  are  engraved  in  profile,  and  they 
have  retreating  foreheads  and  immense  noses,  and 
the  eye,  unhke  the  eye  in  Egyptian  art,  is  correctly 
drawn  in  profile.  The  invariable  type  is  distinctly 
Central  Amerind,  altho  the  big  roimded  noses  sug- 
gest Semitic  faces.^^^  Many  of  the  faces  in  the  bas- 
rehefs  are  decidedly,  but  perhaps  imintentionally, 
grotesque,  with  the  big  nose   and  retreating  fore- 

"»  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 

''"  Casts,  Smithsonian  Inst. 

»"  British  Mus. 

'"  British  Mus.     Brought  by  Captain  Vetch,  1842. 

"^  Near  Quebec,  Canada,  I  once  saw  a  young  girl,  with  some 
Amerind  blood,  whose  physiognomy  was  absolutely  that  of  Central 
Amerind  bas-reliefs. 


170  -    COMPARATIVE    ART. 

head  always  sculptured  in  profile.  Some  slabs  from 
buildings  at  Menche  Tinamit,  Tabasco,  Mexico,^^* 
have  figures  in  profile.  They  have  enormous,  al- 
most Semitic,  noses,  and  the  eyes  are  in  profile. 
They  look  something  like  Hindu  faces,  but  quite 
unlike  Egyptian  faces.  The  cornice  of  a  temple 
from  Copan,  Honduras,  has  also  many  figures  all  in 
profile.  They  are  draped,  wear  a  kind  of  turban 
and  have  big  ear  rings.  The  bodies  and  legs  are 
small.     They  resemble  somewhat  Hindu  work. 

A  ntunber  of  masks  from  Mexico, ^^^  made  of  a 
sort  of  obsidian  mosaic,  are  most  remarkable.  The 
colors  are  either  black  or  green.  They  have  white, 
set-in  eyes,  and  white  teeth.  There  are  also  a 
big,  double  headed  snake  of  mosaic,  and  a  handle 
of  mosaic,  representing  a  kneeling  man,  in 
which  a  chipped  stone  spear  head  or  dagger- 
like implement  is  inserted.  These  masks  sug- 
gest death's  heads;  they  are  ghastly.  Altho 
there  is  no  resemblance  in  form  to  the  heads  from 
Rapa-Nm  and  Hawaii,  yet  the  set-in  eyes  suggest  a 
resemblance.  There  is  also  a  certain  resemblance 
between  these  masks  and  those  of  West  North 
Amerind  art. 

Pottery  sculptures  are  found  everywhere  from 
Mexico  to  Peru,  in  Mexico.  Guatemala,  Honduras, 
Nicaragua,    Costa    Rica,    Ecuador,    Peru,     and    in 

'34  British  Mus. 
235  British  Mus. 


^  .  CENTRAL   AMERIND    ART.  171 

some  of  the  Antilles,  such  as  Antigua  Island. ^^ 
Naive  and  sometimes  grotesque,  are  perhaps  the 
most  nearly  descriptive  adjectives.  These  sculp- 
tures are  usually  poor  and  as  a  rule  the  heads  might 
be  looked  on  as  caricatures,  for  many  of  the  faces 
wear  a  broad  grin.  There  is  a  difference  in  the 
sculptures  of  each  locality  from  the  sculptures  in  all 
the  other  localities.  Nevertheless,  big  heads  and 
small  bodies  and  even  smaller  legs  are  generic.  This, 
of  course,  is  a  distinct  resemblance  to  African  art 
and  to  Australasian  art. 

In  some  red  pottery  from  Mexico^^^  there  are  heads 
which  are  distinctly  grotesque.  Some  broken  bits 
have  a  distant  resemblance  to  big  Japanese  netzkes. 
In  the  same  red  material  there  are  some  animal 
statuettes — a  coiled  snake,  a  coiled  snake  holding  a 
frog,  a  turkey  gobbler — and  these  are  better  than  the 
heads.  I  have  seen  also  many  other  specimens  of 
this  pottery  from  Mexico, ^^  and  I  consider  it  inferior 
to  Peruvian  pottery  in  its  art. 

There  is  much  pottery  from  Peru.^^®  It  is  mostly 
red,  and  some  of  it  is  black.  It  is  often  decorated 
with  drawings  of  men,  animals  and  birds.  Often 
it  is  moulded  into  the  forms  of  heads,  and  I  am 
inclined  to  consider  the  heads  from  there  as  the  best 
of  any  from  the  west  coast  of  America.     Some  of 

^'®  Smithsonian  Inst.     Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts.     British  Mus. 

'^'  Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts. 

238  U.  S,  Nat.  Mus.      British  Mus. 

23'  Smithsonian  Inst.     Boston  Mus.  Fine  Arts.     Bi;itish  Mus. 


172  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

the  potteries  have  the  square  type  head  of  Mexico 
and  Zuni.  Some  of  these  heads  are  purely  grotesque : 
others  are  decidedly  good  and  show  the  Central 
Amerind  type  of  head  well  carried  out.  These  heads 
often  have  white  eyes.  Many  of  them  look  as  if 
they  had  just  been  made,  as  for  instance,  two  wooden 
heads^*^  with  hats  set  sideways,  which  remind  me 
forcibly  of  Napoleon  I.,  except  that  they  look  like 
caricatures  of  him :  probably  these  heads  are  of  a  late 
date  and  the  hats  are  European. 

Central  Amerind  art  still  survives  in  a  degraded 
form  in  Arizona  and  New  Mexico  among  the  Pueblo 
Amerinds.  The  best  artistic  proof  of  this  is  that 
Moki,  Hopi  and  Zuni  art  runs  to  squares.  These 
three  tribes^*^  make  ceremonial  dolls  and  masks 
which  seem  to  me  to  be  about  the  crudest  and  most 
inartistic  attempts  at  sculpture  I  have  seen.  These 
are  colored  vividly  and  garishly  with  white,  emerald 
green,  Indian  red,  bright  yellow,  etc.  When  one 
considers  the  inharmonious  colors,  implying  a  lack  of 
color  sense,  and  the  square  lines,  descended  from 
Mexican  art,  implying  a  lack  of  any  sense  of  form, 
it  is  hard  to  see  how  art  could  sink  lower. 

All  pueblo  art,  however,  is  not  absolutely  bad. 
There  are  some  small  Zuni  carvings  of  animals^*^  in 
various  sorts  of  stone,  which  show  some  slight  sense 


"»  British  Mus. 

^*^  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus.     Univ.  of  Penna.  Mus.  Arch.     British  Mus. 

2^2  U.  S.  Nat.  Mus. 


CENTRAL   AMERIND   ART,  173 

of  form  and  observation.  The  most  interesting 
thing  about  these  is  that  they  decidedly  suggest 
some  Eskimo  carvings  from  Alaska.  These  same 
pueblo  tribes  also  place  decorative  designs  on  some 
of  their  potteries.  In  many  cases  these  are  extreme- 
ly ugly.  In  other  examples,  however,  altho  from  the 
standpoint  of  artistic  drawing,  the  humans  and  ani- 
mals are  bad,  infantile  and  lacking  in  observation, 
yet  as  decorations  they  seem  to  me  a  decided  success 
and  to  fill  the  round  circle  of  the  bowl  admirably. 

An  important  discovery  in  the  region  of  the 
Pueblos  was  that  of  some  implements'*^  dug  out  from 
a  mound  in  southeastern  Colorado,  which  are  exactly 
similar  to  the  patu-patu  or  merai,  the  traditional 
weapon  of  the  Maories.  This  is  almost  certain  evi- 
dence of  a  relationship  between  Australasia  and 
Central  America. 

On  the  whole.  Central  Amerind  art  is  rougher, 
coarser,  less  beautiful,  more  barbarous  than  Egyp- 
tian, South  Asiatic  or  East  Asiatic  art.  It  is  largely 
an  art  of  square  blocks.  It  is  sufficiently  distinctive 
and  different  from  other  arts  to  make  it  fairly  cer- 
tain that  it  is  principally  autochthonous,  that  is 
that  it  developed  mainly  on  the  spot.  It  is  the  most 
advanced  type  of  Amerind  art,  probably  because, 
owing  to  geographic  and  climatic  environment, 
the  peoples  of  Mexico  and  Peru  reached  a  more  ad- 

'*^  Smithsonian  Inst.     Found  by  Mr.  J.  B.  Aldrich. 


174  COMPARATIVE   ART.  ■      ' 

vanced  stage  of  culture  than  those  of  Eastern  North 
or  South  America.  Central  Amerind  art,  however, 
certainly  has  some  resemblance  to  other  arts. 
The  heads  in  bas-reliefs  or  potteries  from  Central 
or  West  South  America  always  suggest  the  Amer- 
ind type,  but  some  of  the  monoliths  resemble  some- 
what the  statues  from  Rapa-Nui,  that  is  there 
are  some  resemblances  between  Central  Amerind 
and  Australasian  art.  The  statues  and  sculptured 
monoliths  do  not  in  the  least  suggest  the  Buddhas, 
but  some  of  the  temples  and  ornamentation  do  re- 
semble somewhat  Southeast  Asian  temples.  There 
are  also  certain  other  superficial  resemblances  be- 
tween some  of  the  large  single  figures  and  some 
Egyptian  ones.  Mexican  art  however  resembles 
most  strongly  the  less  advanced  West  North  Amer- 
ind art,  and  as  this  was  certainly  in  touch  with  Aus- 
tralasian art,  and  with  some  Yellow  race  art  from 
Eastern  Asia,  it  seems  to  me  that  a  migration  of 
some  Asian  Yellows,  of  fewer  Australasian  Blacks, 
and  a  few  South  Asian  Whites  across  the  Pacific 
must  account  for  some  of  the  motives  of  Mexican 
art.  It  looks  as  if  some  driblets  of  the  oriental 
races  had  drifted  over  from  Asia  and  Australasia, 
bringing  of  course  their  art  ideas,  and  that  these  had^ 
developed  on  the  spot  almost  autochthonously.^^* 

^**  Antiquities  of  Mexico,  1830-48.  [Edited  by  Viscount  Kings- 
borough.] 

John  L.  Stephens:  Incidents  of  Travel  in  Central  America,  Chiapas 
and  Yticatan,  1844. 


east  south  amerind  art.  175 

East  South  Amerind  Art. 

East  South  Amerind  art  seems  to  be  practically 
autochthonous.  This  extended  over  pretty  nearly 
all  South  America  east  of  the  Andes,  and  it  still 
exists  in  most  of  the  forest  region  of  the  Amazon 
and  of  the  Orinoco.  Its  quality  is  very  poor.  It 
resembles  most  nearly  the  art  of  West  South  America, 
but  it  seems  to  have  less  pictorial  quality,  and, 
what  there  is  of  it,  to  be  more  a  conventional 
decorative  art. 

From  the  Caribs,  Marsaruni  River,  Guiana,  there 
are  two  small  almost  shapeless  clay  figures.^^^  Other- 
wise from  Guiana,  Brazil  and  South  America  east 
of  the  Andes  there  is  only  some  decorative  art. 
Some  bamboo  flutes  from  the  Caribs  are  ornamented 
with  decorative  patterns,  quite  unlike  Old  World 
forms.  Some  pottery  from  Peru  and  some  from 
the  Ucayale  River  likewise  show  designs  different 
from  any  I  have  seen  from  elsewhere :  their  patterns 
are  mostly  in  right  angles.  There  are  many  stone 
implements  from  Brazil,  and  most  of  these  are 
polished  stone.  From  Brazil  also  there  are  some 
handsome  ornaments  made  of  feathers  and  many 
made    with    European    beads.     From    the    Chaco, 

J.  D.  Baldwin:   Ancient  America,  1871. 

Jesse  Walter  Fewkes:  "Archaeological  Expedition  to  Arizona  in 
1895:"  Seventeenth  Annual  Report  Bureau  American  Ethnology. 

Dr.  Carl  Lumholtz:  Bulletin  American  Geographical  Society,  Vol. 
XXXV.,  pp.  91-92.     Unknown  Mexico,   1902. 

^*^  British  Mus:  An  inscription  says  that  the  Indian  tribes  of 
tropical  Brazil  are  still  in  a  stone  age. 


176  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

Paraguay,  there  are  polished  stone  axe  heads,  and 
a  couple  of  small  gourds  rudely  decorated  with  the 
most  elementary  lines.  From  Tierra  del  Fuego, 
there  are  some  stone  implements,  but  no  art.^^ 

^*^  Alexander  von  Humboldt:  Personal  Narrative  of  Travels  to  the 
Equinoctial  Regions  of  the  New  Continent,  London,  1819,  Vol.  IV., 
pp.  521,  522,  578. 

Comte  de  Gabriac:  Promenade  a  travers  VAnUrique  du  Sud,  Paris, 
Michel  Levy  Freres,  1868. 

A.  Hamilton  Rice:  The  Geographical  Journal,  London,  1903, 
Vol.  XXI.,  p.  415. 


PART  IV. 
CONCLUSION. 

Summary  of  the  Distribution  of  Arts.      Autochthonous  Arts. 
Movements  of  Arts.     Causes  of  Art.     Several  Races  op  Man. 

In  this  final  chapter,  I  will  try  to  sum  up  briefly 
the  OPINIONS  to  which  my  observations  on  the 
fine  arts  of  all  the  races  which  I  have  been  able  to 
observe  have  led  me.  No  one  need  in  any  way 
accept  my  conclusions  as  facts:  they  are  only  the 
OPINIONS  which  I  hold  at  present,  but  which  I 
shall  be  perfectly  willing  to,  and  doubtless  shall, 
change,  as  I  learn  new  facts  hereafter. 

This  study  in  the  first  place  shows  that  almost 
all  men  everywhere,  that  all  human  races,  have, 
or  have  had,  some  notions  of  art.  The  only  land 
where  there  is  no  art  is  Antartika,  which  is  not 
wonderful,  since  neither  in  East  Antartika,  nor  in 
West  Antartika,  have  any  traces  of  man  been 
found.247 

It  seems  to  me  that  there  are  several  distinct 
types  of  art. 

The  earliest  art  known  is  that  of  the  Pleistokenes, 
which  is  stirely  prehistoric.     It  dates  back  to  at 

^"  Edwin  Swift  Balch:  Antarctica,  Philadelphia,  Press  of  Allen, 
Lane  &  Scott,  1902.  It  seems  to  me  that  it  would  be  rational  to 
spell  henceforth  the  name  of  the  South  Polar  Continent  "  Antartika  ", 
instead  of  "Antarctica"  in  which  the  first  "c"  is  silent  and  the 
second  "  c  "  really  a  "  k  ". 


178  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

least  10,000  years  B.  C,  and  probably  much  earlier. 
The  data  do  not  appear  to  be  sufficient  as  yet  to 
connect  the  Pleistokenes  positively  with  any  race 
now  in  existence,  altho  it  is  most  probable  that 
they  were  a  Yellow  race,  and  the  ancestors  of  the 
Eskimo.  We  know  that  the  Pleistokene  habitat 
was  in  the  middle  latitudes  of  western  Europe, 
and  at  present,  therefore,  we  must  look  on  that 
part  of  the  world  as  the  cradle  of  art  and  of  social 
organization. 

The  Polished  Stone  peoples  of  Europe  had  no  art, 
apparently,  and  there  is  no  more  art  in  Europe  until 
the  Bronze   period    towards  perhaps  3000  or  2000 

B.  C.  in  Northern  Greece,  Crete,  etc.  The  oldest 
Greek  art  might  have  some  connection  with 
Pleistokene  art,  but  there  is  no  proof  and  scarcely  a 
possibility  of  this.  This  oldest  Greek  art,  which 
might  perhaps  be  called  Pre-Hellenic,  about  2500  B. 

C.  to  800  B.  C,  probably  grew  up  on  the  spot,  and 
from  it  developed  the  later  and  great  Greek  art,  about 
800  B.  C.  to  100  A.  D.  Partly  from  this  came  the 
art  of  old  Rome,  about  300  B.  C.  to  400  A.  D., 
which  spread  aroimd  the  Mediterranean  and  left 
such  glorious  architectural  monuments  in  North 
Africa,  Provence,  and  many  other  lands.  Byzantine 
art  rose  from  Roman  art  in  Constantinople  towards 
450  A.  D. ;  and  Romanesque  architecture,  about 
800  A.  D.  to  1200  A.  D.,  and  Gothic  architecture, 
about  1150  A.  D.  to  1450  A.  D.,  evolved  in  Italy 


.     CONCLUSION.  179 

and  west  central  Europe  from  the  architecture  of 
Rome.  All  their  numerous  changes  in  structure 
and  embellishments  were  the  natural  results  of  fresh 
needs  and  environments.  Towards  the  end  of  the 
first  millenniimi  A.  D.,  also,  we  find  the  Eiu-opean 
missal  painters  trying  to  represent  their  beliefs 
and  in  the  middle  of  the  second  millenniimi  getting 
their  eyes  sufficiently  opened  to  see  that  painting 
is  not  the  best  mediimi  to  express  mental  ab- 
stractions, but  that  it  deals  with  the  natural  world. 
This  gradually  evolved  thru  the  period  known 
as  the  Renaissance,  about  1400  A.  D.  to  1700  A.  D., 
into  the  art  of  Europe  and  America  of  to-day. 

One  of  the  oldest  of  arts  is  Egyptian  art.  Author- 
ities differ  much  about  the  date  of  events  in  Egypt, 
but  the  art  may  be  fairly  safely  assigned  within  the 
five  millenniums  preceding  the  Christian  era.  Egyp- 
tian art  flourished  almost  entirely  in  the  reaches 
of  the  lower  Nile  valley,  but  it  had  some  influence 
on  the  art  of  North  Africa,  Greece,  Sicily,  and 
Etruria. 

In  Egypt  and  Arabia,  about  750  A.  D.,  an  art 
arose  as  the  result  of  Muhammedan  religious  tenets, 
which,  with  its  foundations  resting  on  preceding 
architectiu^al  remains,  extended  thru  North  Africa 
and  crossed  to  Spain,  leaving  its  great  relics  of  the 
Alhambra  and  the  Mosque  of  Cordova;  and  which 
to  the  eastward  spread  to  Central  Asia  and  to  Hin- 
dustan. 


180  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

To  the  south  of  the  Sahara,  we  find  two  distinct 
arts:  African  art  and  Bushman  art.  African  art  is 
certainly  absolutely  independent  of  Yellow,  Semitic, 
and  European  art.  It  is  found  in  almost  every 
part  of  Africa,  south  of  the  Sd,hara,  for  instance  in 
Lagos,  Dahomey,  Ashantee,  the  Kongo,  Bechuana 
and  Matabeleland,  the  Mweru  and  Bangweolo  dis- 
tricts and  Uganda.  The  specimens  of  this  art, 
mostly  wooden  sculptures,  are  all  recent  in  date. 
They  are  characterized  by  their  big  heads,  small 
bodies,  short  legs,  and  by  the  exaggerations  of 
the  salient  points  of  their  anatomy. 

Bushman  art,  which  so  far  is  known  positively 
only  to  the  south  of  the  Zambezi,  has  no  resemblance 
at  all  to  African  art,  to  which  it  is  immeasurably 
superior.  It  has  some  of  the  qualities  of  East  Asiatic 
art  and  Pleistokene  art  and  it  is  possible  that  it  is 
in  some  way  related  to  them.  Many  of  the  pictures 
of  figures  in  htmting  disguises  are  akin  to  the 
Egyptian  animal  headed  monsters. 

In  Asia  there  are  at  least  three  great  distinct 
arts:  Semitic  art;  South  Asiatic  art;  and  East 
Asiatic  art.  Semitic  art  as  far  as  can  be  said  at 
present,  developed  in  Kaldea,  about  5000  to  500 
B.  C,  descended  to  the  Assyrians,  about  1500-500 
B.  C,  to  the  Hittites  in  Asia  Minor,  about  1500-700 
B.  C,  and  to  the  old  Persians.  Such  art  as  the  Jews 
of  Palestine  had,  came  also  mainly  from  Baby- 
lonian   influence    and    also    likewise    any   art  the 


CONCLUSION.  181 

Phenicians  had.  While  the  Phenicians  were 
traders  and  explorers  rather  than  artists,  yet  they 
probably  took  some  Semitic  art  ideas  to  Car- 
thage, Sicily,  and  Etruria,  and  possibly,  but  not 
probably,   also  to  Southeast  Africa  at  Zimbabwe. 

South  Asiatic  art  sprang  up  at  some  indefinite 
time  several  millenniums  B.  C.  in  Hindustan.  This 
Hindu  art  may  antedate  Kaldean  and  Egyptian 
art.  It  is  probably  autochthonous,  but  it  seems 
possible  that  Hindu  and  Kaldean  art  may  come 
from  a  common  center  in  the  region  of  Afghan- 
istan and  Turkestan.  Our  knowledge  of  the  be- 
ginnings of  Hindu  art,  however,  is  decidedly 
nebulous. 

East  Asiatic  art  rose  in  China,  probably  autoch- 
thonously,  also  at  some  indefinite  time,  which  may 
perhaps  be  placed  towards  about  2000  B.  C.  From 
Chinese  art  principally  sprang  Japanese  art,  some- 
where round  500  A.  D. 

As  a  result  of  the  spread  of  the  Buddhist  religion 
in  Southern  and  Eastern  Asia  sometime  after  600 
B.  C,  there  were  some  new  factors  brought  into 
the  arts  of  the  peoples  inhabiting  the  lands  extend- 
ing from  Afghanistan  to  the  Pacific  coast.  There 
are  certainly  Buddhist  temples  in  Hindustan,  Java, 
Cochin-China,  China,  and  Japan,  and  in  China 
and  Japan  kakemonos  representing  incidents  in 
Buddhistic  history  are  extremely  common.  My 
impression,  however,   is  that  what  one  may  call 


182  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

Buddhistic  art  was  merely  the  grafting  of  certain 
subjects  on  arts  which  were  already  developed. 

In  the  islands  of  the  Southern  Pacific  we  find 
much  art.  There  are  two  or  more  subtypes.  All 
of  these  are  closely  akin  to  African  art;  and  the 
imnaturally  large  heads,  the  pose  of  the  figures 
and  their  general  grip  by  their  artists,  are  so  similar 
to  the  specimens  from  Africa,  that  it  seems  probable 
that  their  makers  must  have  been  related  by  blood. 
There  is  certainly  an  inferior  and  a  superior 
variety  of  this  art,  and  specimens  of  the  inferior 
subtype  come  from  many  islands,  among  which 
may  be  mentioned  the  Hervey  Islands,  New  Heb- 
rides, Tahiti,  Samoa.  The  more  mature  subtype, 
also  principally  wooden  sculptures,  often  with  curi- 
ously shaped  heads,  crops  up  in  Sumatra,  New 
Zealand,  Solomon  Islands,  Hawaii,  Rapa-Nui.  My 
impression  is  that  this  Australasian  art  is  the 
work  of  two  and  perhaps  more  races.  Four-fifths 
of  it  at  least  comes  from  a  black  race,  and  the 
remainder  was  doubtless  fathered  by  the  brown 
mixed  race  whom  we  call  the  Malay,  which  prob- 
ably includes  some  white  affiliations  from  Southern 
Asia  and  some  yellow  ones  from  Eastern  Asia,  for 
this  Australasian  art  is  not  only  found  in  Sumatra, 
but  there  are  traces  of  it  in  Japan. 

In  Arctic  Asia  and  Arctic  America,  we  find  an 
art  almost  distinct  from  others.  This  is  the  art  of 
the  Chukchees,  Koraks,  and  Yakaghirs  in  Siberia, 


CONCLUSION.  183 

and  of  the  Eskimos  in  Siberia,  Alaska,  Greenland 
and  Labrador.  Altho  the  art  of  each  tribe  varies 
from  that  of  the  others,  still  there  is  a  family  hke- 
ness  sufficiently  strong  to  consider  it  as  one  art. 
This  art  does  not  resemble  Aryan,  Semitic  or  Afro- 
Australasian  art,  but  it  does  have  decided  resem- 
blances to  Pleistokene  art  and  to  Bushman  art  and 
some  to  East  Asiatic  art,  and  it  is  possible  that  the 
Eskimo  are  the  descendants  of  the  Pleistokenes, 
altho  this  can  not  be  looked  on  as  a  certainty. 

On  the  American  continent  art  is  found  almost 
everywhere.  It  appears  to  be  mainly  of  autoch- 
thonous growth,  and  it  seems  to  fall  into  three  or 
perhaps  four  great  divisions.  In  the  northwest, 
the  art  of  the  Tlinkits,  the  Haidas,  and  Kwakiutls, 
whilst  very  individual  and  partly  autochthonous, 
is  certainly  related  to  Australasian  art  and  to  South 
and  East  Asiatic  arts. 

In  East  North  America,  we  find  an  art  which  is 
extremely  individual,  not  much  developed,  and 
which,  strange  to  say,  resembles  in  its  quality  more 
nearly  the  attempts  at  drawing  and  painting  made 
by  White  children  than  it  does  any  other  art. 

In  Central  America  and  West  South  America, 
art  rose  to  its  greatest  heights  on  the  American 
Continent.  This  art  extends  from  Arizona,  thru 
Mexico,  Guatemala,  Hondurus,  Nicaragua,  Costa 
Rica,  Colombia,  Ecuador  and  Peru  down  to  northern 
Chili.     This  art,  with  its  pyramids,  temples,  sculp- 


184  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

tures  and  bas-reliefs,  comes  down  as  a  great  art  to 
at  least  the  year  1520  A.  D.,  as  Cortez  and  Pizarro 
found  the  natives  of  Mexico  and  Peru  using  their 
temples.  It  exists  still,  in  a  debased  form,  among 
the  Mokis  and  the  Zunis.  When  this  art  began, 
there  is  as  yet  no  means  of  knowing.  Unquestion- 
ably it  is  mainly  autochthonous  in  growth,  but 
there  are  many  resemblances  to  West  North  Amerind 
art,  and  some  to  Australasian  art,  East  Asiatic  art, 
and  South  Asiatic  art,  and  this  shows  almost  surely 
some  influence  from  across  the  Pacific. 

East  South  America  is  almost  barren  of  art,  so 
much  so  in  fact  that  it  is  hard  to  tell  whether  its 
art  is  most  nearly  in  touch  with  East  North  Amerind 
or  Central  Amerind  art. 

In  various  parts  of  the  world,  also,  there  are  sev- 
eral small  tribes,  among  them,  the  Ainu,  the  Anda- 
man islanders,  and  the  Koonds  of  Orissa,  who 
either  have  almost  no  art  or  whose  exceedingly 
primitive  art  it  is  difficult  to  connect  with  any  other. 

It  seems  to  me  that,  when  one  considers  all  these 
various  arts,  their  growth  and  their  development 
and  in  some  cases  their  downfall,  there  is  fairly  suf- 
ficient evidence  to  warrant  the  assertion  that  art  is 
autochthonous  among  several  races  and  in  several 
places.  It  must  have  been  autochthonous  among 
the  Pleistokenes.  It  seems  also  probable  that  art 
was  almost  autochthonous  among  the  Greeks,  the 
Kaldeans,  the  Egyptians,  the  Hindus,  the  Chinese, 


CONCLUSION.  185 

the  Africans,  the  Bushmen,  the  Australasians,  the 
Innuits,  the  East  North  Amerinds  and  the  Central 
Amerinds.  Art  may  not  have  been  entirely  autoch- 
thonous in  all  these  cases  and  it  may  have  been 
autochthonous  among  more  races  than  are  here 
mentioned,  but  I  strongly  opine  that  art  started 
from  the  human  art  instinct  practically  independ- 
ently in  at  least  ten  or  twelve  places  in  the  world. 

It  seems  also  certain  that  some  of  these  arts 
spread  from  their  starting  points  and  travelled  to 
other  races  than  their  inventors:  in  some  cases,  half 
way  roimd  the  globe.  As  a  help  to  ethnology,  there- 
fore, it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  important  to  trace 
back  as  far  as  possible  the  history  of  each  art  and 
the  geographical  routes  which  it  has  followed. 

Altho  art  appears  to  be  practically  autoch- 
thonous in  several  places,  still  it  must  be  noted 
that  the  arts  of  neighboring  places  gradate  rather 
gently  into  each  other.  For  instance,  Hindu  art 
changes  into  Siamese  art  and  Siamese  art  gradates 
into  Chinese  art.  The  art  of  Australasia  extends  to 
the  west  over  Africa,  and  to  the  north  touches  Japan 
and  Northwest  America.  One  of  the  most  remark- 
able of  all  the  resemblances  which  can  be  traced 
is  that  of  the  art  of  the  East  North  Amerinds  to  that 
of  Aryan  children.  And  it  seems  almost  as  if  in 
past  times,  perhaps  before  historical  times,  certainly 
before  the  advent  of  modem  historical  records, 
races  must  have  scattered  and  intermingled.     They 


186  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

certainly  did  so  over  most  of  the  three  continents 
earliest  known  to  history;  they  surely  had  connec- 
tion across  the  Pacific ;  and  it  seems  possible,  that 
long  ago,  there  may  have  been  commtinication 
across  the  Atlantic.  In  other  words,  art  possibly 
girdled  the  earth  before  the  dawn  of  history. 

A  fact  which  cannot  be  gainsaid  is  that  at  the  same 
time,  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  there  were 
and  are  different  states  of  social  organization  and 
of  art.  And  it  is  a  safe  inference  also,  that  when 
art  flourishes  in  any  spot,  that  place  is  in  a  condition 
of  material  prosperity  and  in  a  more  or  less  ad- 
vanced state  of  social  organization.  Venice,  at  the 
time  of  Veronese;  Holland,  at  the  time  of  Rem- 
brandt; Greece,  at  the  time  of  Phideas  and  Prax- 
iteles, are  good  instances  of  the  working  of  this 
principle.  From  such  obvious  examples,  we  may 
infer  that  when  we  find  great  art  in  a  country,  as 
in  Kaldea,  or  in  China  under  the  Ming  Dynasty, 
there  must  have  been  also  an  advanced  state  of 
social  organization  at  the  same  time.  And  when 
we  find  such  good  art  as  that  of  the  Bushmen  or 
that  of  the  Pleistokenes,  it  is  also  safe  to  infer  that 
the  makers  could  not  have  been  the  kind  of  men 
whom  we  speak  of  contemptuously  and  conceitedly 
as  savages. 

When  art  was  autochthonous  to  any  race,  as  it 
for  instance  certainly  was  to  the  Pleistokenes,  the 
evidence  afforded  by  the  specimens  dug  up  of  the 


CONCLUSION.  187 

Pleistokenes  themselves,  shows  that  it  appeared 
first  as  sculpttire  in  the  round,  then  as  bas-reliefs, 
next  as  drawing  and  only  lastly  as  painting.  That 
is  to  say,  an  untaught  artist  who  has  been  subjected 
to  no  extraneous  influences,  first  tries  to  imitate 
some  object  as  best  he  can.  i  Art  therefore  begins 
in  observation  and  imitation.) 

Seeing  things  as  on  a  plane  instead  of  in  the  roimd  \ 
only  comes  as  a  later  development  of  art,  and  many    I 
specimens  of  drawings  and  paintings  from  primitive  / 
or  not  highly  civilized  peoples  tend  to  show  that, 
as   a   rule,  the   drawing  of  animals  is  at  first  far 
superior  to  the  drawing  of  humans,  and  the  draw- 
ing   of    landscape    is    almost    unknown.     Possibly 
this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  most  primitive  peoples 
are,  or  were,  hunters,  and   that   their  observations 
are  chiefly  centered  on  their  food  supply,  namely   y 
the  wild  faima  among  whom  they  live.  ^ 

The  fact  that  observation  and  imitation  of  animals    ] 
and  men  in  the  round  are  the  causes  to  which  the  / 
earliest  art  must  be  assigned,  shows,  it  seems  to  | 
me,  that  primitive  art  must  come  solely  from  an  s 
art  impulse.     It  does  not  arise  from  any  supersti-/ 
tious  or  psychical  sentiment,  but   simply  because 
the  artist  is  interested  in  something  he   sees,  and 
he  has  a  desire  to  mimic  it.     It  is  almost  universal 
among     white     people    to    label    and    libel  figures 
made  by  savage  or  rather  by  non- European  races 
as    idols.     I   cannot    help    thinking    that  there  is 


188  COMPARATIVE   ART. 

something  queer,  something  cross-eyed  about  this 
(    point  of  view.     In  four  cases  out  of  five,  the  sculp- 
]  tures  or  drawings  made  by  Whites,  or  Yellows,  or 
/    Reds,   or  Blacks    have   probably  no  mystical  sig- 
nificance, but  are  merely  the  desire  for  art  expres- 
sion which  seems   inherent   in   many  humans. 

Another  fact  which  shows  that  art  is  autoch- 
thonous in  several  parts  of  the  world,  is  that  the 
art  of  every  district  of  the  world  has  an  individuality 
of  its  own,  which  makes  it  distinct  from  every  other 
art,  even  tho  it  closely  resembles  the  art  from 
many  other  localities.  Just  as  it  is  possible  to  tell 
the  work  of  every  great  master  painter  by  his  in- 
dividual quality,  so  is  it  almost  always  possible 
to  tell  where  any  art  comes  from,  because  the  per- 
sonality of  each  race  shows  out  in  the  art  of  every 
land. 

On  the  whole  it  seems  to  me  that  the  evidences 
afforded  by  the  fine  arts  lead  to  the  conclusion 
that  man  did  not  spring  from  one  stock  in  one  lo- 
cality, but  that  he  evolved  several  hundred  thou- 
sand years  ago  in  several  different  places  of  the 
world.  It  seems  most  likely  that  these  places 
were  in  the  present  Eur-Asiatic  continent,  but 
some  of  them,  thru  geological  changes,  may  now 
be  sunk  under  the  Ocean. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


AND 


INDEX 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Part  I. 


Introduction — Idea  of  Book.  Comparison  of  Arts.  Comparative 
Sciences.  Critical  Faculty.  Races  of  Men.  Geological  Time. 
Apology Pages  S-12. 

Part  II. 

Technical  Points  in  Art. — Criticism.  Technic.  Art  and  Nature. 
Synthesis  and  Analysis.  Decoration.  Decorative  Art.  Spots  of 
Color.  Light.  Color.  Drawing  and  Line.  Perspective.  Values. 
Aerial  Perspective.  Subject  and  Motive.  Effect.  Plastic  Idea. 
Action  and  Motion.  Memory  and  Imagination.  Quality,  Style, 
Personality.     Conventionality.     Training.     Photography 

Pages  13-34. 

Part  IIL 

The  Geographical  Distribution  of  Art — Pleistokene  Art.  European 
PoUshed  Stone  Period  Art.  European  Bronze  Period  Art.  Greek 
Art.  Etruscan  Art.  Roman  Art.  Byzantine  Art.  Flemish  and 
Itahan  Art.  Egyptian  Art.  (Arab  Art.  African  Art.  Zimbabwe 
Art.  Bushman  Art.  JKaldean  Art.  Assyrian  Art.  Phenician 
Art.  Persian  Art.  South  Asiatic  Art.  East  Asiatic  Art.  v  Ainu 
Art.  East  Siberian  Art.  Australasian  Art.  Eskimo  Art.  West 
North  Amerind  Art.  East  North  Amerind  Art.  Central  Amerind 
Art.     East  South  Amerind  Art Pages  35-176. 

Part  IV. 

Conclusion. — Summary  of  the  Distribution  of  Arts.  Autochtho- 
nous Arts.  Movements  of  Arts.  Causes  of  Art.  Several  Races 
of  Man Pages  177-188. 


(191) 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Abyssinia 61,  76 

Action  and  motion 28,  29 

Aerial  perspective 27,127 

Afghanistan 98,  101,  110,  181 

Africa 35,  73,  146,  180,  182,  185 

African  art 68,  70,  73-78,  96,  100,  107,  138,  145,  158,  171,  180,  182 

African  sculptures 74,  75,  76,  77,  78 

Africans 9,45,  185 

Afro-Australasian  art 59,  153,  182 

Ainu 136,  184 

Ainu  art 136 

Alaska 62,  109,  152,  155,  159,  182 

Alaska  art 136,  141,  160 

Alexander 110 

Algeria 58,  73 

Alhambra.  the 73,  179 

Altamira 43 

Amazon 175 

America 35,  152,  156,  159,  160,  161,  171,  179,  182,  183 

Amerind  art 107,  152,  176 

Amerinds 9,  39,  107,  157,  161,  163,  164,  165,  172,  174 

Analysis 16,  17 

Andaman  Islands 140 

Andaman  Islanders 184 

Andes 175 

Anian,  Strait  of 136 

Animal  headed  figures 82,  94,  99,  180 

Animal  painting 40,  41,  42,  43,  80,  81,  116,  121,  122,  123 

Animals  in  art 40,  41,  42,  43,  80,  88,  93,  94,  97,  137,  159,  160 

Antartika 177 

Antigua 171 

Antilles 171 

Aoki 114 

Aosta 57 

Apes 9 

Aqueducts 57 

Arab  art 70-73 

Arabia 70,  179 


(193) 


194  INDEX. 

Arabs 71,  72,  79 

Arapahoes 163 

Arctic  Ocean 84,  152 

Arenas 57 

Arizona 156,  165,  172,  183 

Aries 57 

Armenians 94 

Art  and  Nature 15,16 

Artaxerses  Mn<5mon 97 

Aryan  art 107,  117,  120,  182 

Aryans 107,  114,  122,  128,  130,  185 

Ashantee 56,  74,  180 

Ashurbanapal 93 

Asia 35,  51,  87,  98,  102,  107,  130,  139,  140,  159,  174,  180,  182 

Asia  Minor 51,  94,  180 

Assam 102 

Asshumazirapal,  King 92 

Assyria 91,  93,  94 

Assyrian  art 54,  68,  87,  90,  91-95,  96,  100 

Assyrian  artists 20 

Assyrian  bulls 87,  94 

Assyrians 92,  95,  180 

Atlantic  Ocean 77,  186 

Australasia 35,  139,  140,  159,  161,  173,174,185 

Australasian  art 100,  106,  108,  137-152,  157,  158 

161,171,174,182,183,184,185 

Australasians 9,  185 

Australia 138,  143 

Autochthonous  arts 37,  50,  56,  65,  73,  84,  90,  98 

105, 107,  131,  137,  152,  161 

174,184,  185,186,  188 

Aztec 168 

Baal 96 

Babylonia 96,  102 

Babylonian  art 91 

Babylonians 65 

Background 128 

Baganda 76 

Balch,  Mr.  Thomas  Willing l$Q 

Balch,  Mrs 87,  151 

Bali 98,  106 

Balkan  country 58 

Baluchistan. 141 

Bamian 101 

Bangkok 101 

Bangweolo,  Lake 74,  180 


INDEX.  195 

PAGE 

Barawan 141 

Bardo,  the 71,  97 

Barrett,  G 25 

Barye 121 

Batta 140 

Bechuanaland 74,  180 

Belgium 37 

Benin  City 76 

Benin,  Great 74 

Bering  Sea 157 

Bering  Strait 136 

Bevers,  Piz 66 

BibliotMque  Nationale 98 

Binney,  Mr.  Charles  C 66 

Bison 40,  41 

Blackfeet 162 

Black  race 100,  161,  174,  188 

Black  race  art 165 

Bocklin 29 

Bokhara 73 

Borneo 109,  141,  142,  160 

Borneo  art 136 

Boro-Boedoer 105 

Boston 65 

Boston  Museum  Fine  arts 123 

Botticelli 135 

Boucher  de  Perthes ; 46 

Brazil 175 

Breuil,  Abb6 43 

Britain 57,  58 

British  Museum 124,  139 

Bronze  period 48,  49,  53,  66,  178 

Brown  race 9 

Bruges 63,  64 

Bryant,  Mr.  H.  G 153 

Buddha,  the 100,  102,  106,  132 

Buddhas,  statues. 87,  99,  100,  101,  102,  103,  105,  110,  120,  131,  168,  174 

Buddhism 100,  101,  105,  133,  181 

Buddhist  art 101,  105,  107,  110,  131,  132,  133,  182 

Buddhist  temples 101,  181 

Burma 98,  103,  131 

Burmese  art 103,  104 

Bushman  art 79-84,  153,  180,  183 

Bushmen 65,  80,  81,  82,  83,  84,  99,  159,  185,  186 

Bushmen  drawings 45,  80,  82,  83 

Byzantine  art 60-62,  64,  71,  159,  178 


196  INDEX. 

PAOS 

California 157, 160 

Cambodia 104 

Campagna 57 

Canada 162 

Capella  Palatina 61 

Capitan,  Dr 43 

Caribs 175 

Carthage 52,  57,  58,  90,  95,  181 

Carthaginian  priestess,  statue  of 52 

Cassatt,  Miss 21 

Catlin,  George 164 

Cave  Hunting 11 

Cave  Men 46 

Caves  of  Central  Europe 37,  38,  43,  82,  84 

Central  Africa 68 

Central  America 169,  173,  183 

Central  Amerind  art 152,  160,  161,  162,  165-174,  184 

Central  Amerinds 185 

Central  Asia 179 

Central  Europe 10 

Ceylon 98,  99,  102,  103,  105,  110 

Chaco 175 

Chalfin,  Mr.  Paul 123 

Champion,  Mons.  B 38,  39,  42,  66 

Charon 55 

Chelleen  period 46 

Cheyennes,  the 163 

Chili 165,  183 

China 87,98,  107,  108,  110,  125,  131,  132,  181,  186 

Chinese 19,  20,  107,  121,  126,  134,  184 

Chinese  art 11,18,  100,  103,107-135,181,  185 

Chinese  artists 30,  45,  128 

Chinese  sculptures 120 

Chinese  writing Ill 

Chinkei 132 

Chipped  stone  implements 35,  36,  46,  53,  143,  166 

Chipped  Stone  people, 46,  48 

Chipped  Stone  period 53,  66 

Chiusi 55 

Christ 133 

Christian  churches 101 

Christian  era 179 

Christiania 49 

Christianity • 101,  133 

Christians,  the 71 

Chuckchees 136,  137,  153,  156,  182 

Church  of  the  Savior,  Moscow 61 


INDEX.  197 

PAGB 

Clay  eaters 39 

Clemens,  Mr.  S.  L 143 

Cochin  China 87,  99,  104,  105,  167,  181 

Codding,  Mr.  John 162 

Color 23,  129,  130,  163 

Colorado 173 

Colored  windows 61 

Colosseum 57 

Colombia 165,  169,  183 

Comanche,  the 164 

Comparative  anatomy 6,  9 

Comparative  archeology 6 

Comparative  art 7 

Comparative  philology 6 

Conclusion 177-188 

Concord,  temple  of 53 

Constantinople 60,  61,  178 

Conventionality 31,  32 

Copan 169 

Cordova,  Mosque  of 73,  179 

Cometo 56 

Corot 31 

Cortez 165,  167,  184 

Costa  Rica 165,  170,  183 

Couronnement  des  pylones 97 

Crete 178 

Criticism 13,  14 

Critics 7,  14,  29 

Cushing,  Mr.  Frank  H 153 

Cyclopean  art 49 

Cyrenaica 52 

Dahomey 74,  180 

Daibutsz 101 

Danube 58 

Darius,  temple  of 96 

Dawkins,  Prof.  W.  Boyd 1 1,  46 

Decoration 17 

Decorative  art 17,  18 

Delacroix 32 

Delaware  River 1 54 

Dent  du  G^ant 127 

Deshneff 137 

Diana  of  the  Ephesians 148 

Dol-al-Marchant,  sepulchral  chamber 48 

DoUs 51 

Dolmen  of  Gavrinis 48 


198  INDEX. 

PAOB 

Dordogne 38,  43 

Dor6 29 

Drawing  and  line 23,  24,  25 

Dutch 72 

Eannadou,  King 85 

Ear,  elongated 100,  102 

East  Antartika 177 

East  Asiatic  art 45,  59,  70,  90,  93,  96,  107-135,152 

153,  173,  180,  181,  183,  184 

East  Asiatics Ill,  112,  113,  114,  115,  116,  118 

119,  121,  125,  126,  128,  129,  131 

East  North  Amerind  art 152,  161-165,  166,  184 

East  North  Amerinds 158,  162,  163,  164,  185 

East  Siberian  art 136,  137 

East  South  Amerind  art 166,  175-176 

Easter  Island 149 

Eastern  Asia 174, 181,  182 

Ecuador 165,  170,  183 

Effect 27,  28 

Egypt 52,  56,  65,  70 

Egyptian  art 54,  55,  65-70,  87,  94,  95,  100,  137 

151,  153,  169,173,  179,  181 

Egyptian  art  influence 53,  55 

Egyptian  dynasties 67,  70 

Egyptian  Scribe,  the 67 

Egyptian  sculptures 67,  68,  69,  102,  110,  168 

Egyptians,  the 45,  79,  119,  184 

Ehrenreich,  Dr.  P 18 

' '  Elands  hunted  by  lions  " 80 

El  Djem 57 

Emunazar,  King 95 

Engadine 66 

England 37,  47 

Entemena,  King 85 

Eocene 35 

Eoliths 35,  36 

Eskimo,  the 46,  84,  153,  154,  155,  156,  178,  182 

Eskimo  art 10,  45,  81,  137,  152-157,  161 

Eskimo  artists 81 

Eskimo  sculptures 10,  154,  155,  157,  163,  173,  174 

Etruria 55,  90,  179,  181 

Etruscan  art 54-56,  89 

Euphrates 84,  91 

Eur-Asia 188 

Europe 35,  56,  178,  179 

European  art 58,  60,  101,  180 


INDEX.  199 

PAGE 

European  Bronze  period  art 48-49 

European  painters 59,179 

European  painting 52,  63,  64,  65 

European  Polished  Stone  period  art 46-48 

Europeans 9,  19,  20,  161,  186 

Evolution 7,  9,  10 

Eye,  European 99 

Eye,  full  face 92 

Eye  in  art 158,  169 

Eye,  Snow 153,  154,  160 

Face  in  art , 85,119 

"Falcon,"  the 154 

Fatma,  hand  of 167 

Fayum,  the 52 

Fenollosa,  Mr.  E.  F 135 

Fenollosa  collection 122,  127 

Ferry,  de 46 

"Few-pattern" 115 

Fiji  Islands 146 

Flanders 32 

Flemish  and  Italian  art 63-65 

Flemish  painters 44,  63 

Florida 73 

Fond  de  Gaume,  cave 43 

Fonetik  spelling 11 

Foot  in  art 92,  121 

Fortuny 32 

Fox,  Dr.  Charles  William 39 

Fra  Angelico 29,  133 

Frames 113 

France 7,  25,  37,  43,  47 

Frank,  Mr.  Victor  Strauss 149 

French,  the 128 

Friendly  Islands' 146 

Frise  des  Archers 97 

Fromentin 14 

Fumess,  Dr 141 

Fujiyama 124,  128 

Ganesh  or  Ganesa 94,  99 

Gembei  Katsushige 124 

Geographical  distribution  of  art 35-176 

Geology 9,  10 

German  gnomes 88 

Germans 72 

Germany i 37,  57 


200  INDEX. 

PAOB 

Giorgione 20 

Giotto 7 

Girgenti S3 

Glaci^res 11,  17,  18,  72 

Gothic  architecture 178 

Gothic  cathedrals 62 

Gothic  Romanesque 61 

Goudea 86,  87,  88 

Goudeas 51,  55,  86,  87,  89,  91,  102,  1 10 

Goumia SO 

Greece 49,  SO,  110,  178,  179,  186 

Greek  archipelago 50 

Greek  art 45,  49-54,  56,  64,  70,  87,  90,  95,  100,  110,  137,  153,  178 

Greek  artists 20,  52 

Greek  Church 61 

Greek  painting 52,  54 

Greek  pottery 51 

Greek  sculpture 51,  121 

Greeks,  the 184 

Greenland 152,  153,  182 

Grotta  del  Barone 56 

Gruuthuus 63 

Guatemala 165,  168,  170,  183 

Guiana 175 

Haddon,  Prof.  Alfred  C 18,  142 

Haida,  the 156,  157,  183 

Haiti 78 

Hamerton,  Phihp  Gilbert 14,  16,  25,  30 

Hasegawa  Tohahei 123 

Hawaii 108,  138,  140,  144,  146,  147,  151,  170,  182 

Hayaguia 106 

Heilprin,  Prof.  Angelo 153 

Hellenic  art 49 

Herald,  Paris 149 

Hero,  temple  of 53 

Hervey  Islands 138,  148,  182 

Hienheim 58 

Hiller,  Dr 141 

Hilprecht,  Prof.  H.  V 96 

Hima,  the 76 

Himalaya,  the 106 

Hindu  art 90,  94,  98,  99,  100,  132,  137,  151,  168,  169,  181,  185 

Hindu  Brahminical  art 101 

Hindu  mythology 105 

Hindu  statues 99 

Hindustan 73,  98,  179,  181 


INDEX.  201 

PAGE 

Hindus,  the 9,  184 

"Hippopotamus  and  gnus" 80 

Hiroshige 124 

Hittite  art 91,  94,  95 

Hittites,  the 94,  180 

Hoitsu 117 

Hokusai 124 

Holland 186 

Honduras 165,  169,  170,  183 

Honnigen ^     58 

Hooge,  de 31 

Hopi,  the 165,  172 

Horses 40,  41,  43 

Hosi,  tomb  of 67 

Hotel  du  Gouvemement,  Bruges 63 

Hunt,  William  Morris 29 

Idols 51,  186 

Imagination 29,  30,  118 

Impressionism 21 

Imvani  River 82 

India 87,  99,  100,  101,  105,  110,  111 

India  ink Ill 

Inglefield  Gulf 154,  155 

Inness,  George 29 

Innuits 152,  155,  185 

Introduction 5-12 

Isldm,  El 70 

Italy 32,  52,  54,  60,  178 

Jains 101 

Japan 87,  98,  107,  110,  125,  127,  131,  132,  135,  136,  181,  182,  185 

Japanese 19,20,32,33,  107,  111,  121,  124,  126,  130,  134 

Japanese  art 10,  11,  18,  107-135,  137,  159,  161,  181 

Japanese  artists 30,  45,  128 

Japanese  sculptures 120,  171 

Jardin  des  Plantes 149 

Java 98,  102,  104,  105,  106,  167 

Javanese  art 100,  104,  105,  106 

Jervis  Island 143 

Jewish  art 89 

Jews 90,  180 

Kabr  Hiram,  Church  of  Saint  Christopher 60,  61 

Kakemonos 112,  113 

Kaldea .65,  84,  85,  86,  88,  90,  180,  186 


202  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Kaldean  art 51,70,84-91,96,137,  153,  181 

Kaldeans 89,  184 

Kano,  the 108,  127 

Kano  Motonobu 123,  128 

Kano  Tanyu 123 

Kano  Utanosuke 123 

Kayans,  the 141,  160 

Kent 36 

Kesslerloch 41 

Khiva 73 

Khorsabad 94 

Kodak  Company 34 

Kongo,  the 74,  75,  76,  146,  180 

Kongo  forest,  the 68 

Koonds,  the 102,  184 

Koraks,  the... 136,  137,  153,  156,  182 

Korea 98,  109,  142 

Korean  art 108,  109,  136,  160,  161 

Koreans,  the 108 

Korin 32,  119 

Kose-no-Kanaoka 109 

Kouan  Yin 120 

Koyunjik 93,  121 

Kumbum 106 

Kwakiutl,  the 156,  157,  183 

Kwanti 110 

Labrador 1 52,  155,  182 

Lagos 74,  180 

La  Laugerie  Basse 42 

La  Madelaine 41 

Lavigerie,  Mus6e 96 

Lena  River 37 

Leonardo 29 

Les  Eyzies 41 

Light 20,  21,  22,  23 

Light  and  Shade 26 

Life  of  Turner 16 

Limes  imperii  Romani 58 

Line 24,  2  5 

Livre  des  Merveilles 98 

Lombok 105 

London 65,  68,  73,  150,  151 

Louvre 149 

Lubbock,  Sir  John 46 

Luminarisme 22 

Luminariste 21,  22,  23 


INDEX.  203 

PAGE 

Machairodus 35 

Magalhaes,  Strait  of 1 52 

Magdal^n^en  period 46 

Makemonos 112 

Malays,  the 9,  139,  182 

Mammoth 35,  37,  38,  40,  41,  42,  43 

Mandans 164 

Manet,  Edouard 21 

Maories 173 

Marco  Polo 98 

Marquesas  Islands 138,  147 

Marsaruni  River 175 

Masanobu 118,  127 

Mas-d'  Azil 38 

Mashonaland 76 

Masks 54,  103,  104,  105,  141,  159,  170 

Matabeleland 74,  146,  180 

Maya 168 

Mediterranean,  the 52,  62,  95,  178 

Medusa 54 

Melanesians 138,  139 

Memling 20,  63,  64 

Memory  and  imagination 29,  30,  1 18 

Menche  Tinamit,  Mexico 170 

Mercer,  Mr.  H.  C 71 

Metric  system 11 

Mexican  art .69,  70,  100,  151,  158,  166,  167,  168,  169,  174 

Mexican  artists 20 

Mexican  statues 88 

Mexicans 20 

Mexico 7,69,73,  142,  165,  168,  170,  171,  172,  173,  183,  184 

Michael  Angelo 29 

Middle  Ages 55 

Ming  Dynasty 109,  122,  186 

Missal  paintings 63,  64 

Mississippi 167 

Mithras  worship 38 

Moki,  the 156,  172,  184 

Monet,  Claude 21 

Mongolian  characteristics 83 

Mongolians 9,153 

Monkeys  hands 39 

Monoliths 47,  78,  166,  168 

Monreale,  Duomo  at 61 

Moors 72 

Morocco 73 

Morse,  Prof.  E.  S . , 136 


204  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Mori  Sosen 45,  116,  118 

Mortillet,  G.  de 46 

Moscow 27,  61,  62 

Moslems 72 

Motion 28,29 

Motive 27 

Moundbuilders,  the 167 

Moundville,  Alabama 167 

Mountain  paintings 127 

Mountings 113 

Moust^rien  period 46 

Muhammed 70,  73 

Muhammedans 70,  1 79 

Musee  de  Saint  Germain 10,  38,  66 

Museum  of  Archeology,  University  of  Pennsylvania 154 

Mweru,  Lake 74,  76,  180 

Mykene 49 

Mykenian  art 49,  50 

Myrina 51 

Nabu-Apal-Iddina,  King 89 

Naomi 128 

Napoleon  1 172 

Narasimha  avatar 99 

Navigators'  Islands 146 

Neferseshemes 68 

Negro  race 70,  161 

Nenhetefka 68 

Neolithic 47 

Neolithic  people 46 

Neoliths 46 

Netheriands,  the 60 

New  Britain 138,  143 

New  Caledonia 138,  145 

New  Guinea 138,  142 

New  Hebrides 138,  145,  182 

New  Ireland 144 

New  Mexico 172 

New  York 73 

New  Zealand 108,  138,  145,  146,  182 

New  Zealand  art 144,  145,  146,  151,  160 

Newcomb's  Astronomy 15 

Nicaragua 165,  170,  183 

Nicobars 138,  139,  140 

Niger 75 

Nigeria 75,  161 

Nightwatch,  the 21 


INDEX.  205 

PAGE 

Nijni-Novgorod 62,  73 

Nile,  the 84,  179 

Nimes 57 

Nimrud 93,  94 

Nootka,  the 157 

North  Africa 52,  56,  57,  58,  73,  84,  178,  179 

North  America 159,  161,  162,  174,  183,  185 

Noses  in  art 85,  90,  169,  170 

Notre  Dame  de  Paris 18 

Nuffar 88,  89 

Ocean 188 

Ohio,  the 167 

Okio 32,  45 

Orange  Free  State 76 

Orihon 112 

Orinoco,  the 175 

Orissa 102,  184 

Ortman,  Dr.  A.  E 154 

Osiris 68 

"Ostrich  hunting" 80,  81 

Our  Baou '. 86 

Our  Nina,  King 85 

Outline 24,  114 

Pacific 137,  138,  144,  161,  174,  182,  184,  186 

Paestum,  temples  of 52 

Palenque 167 

Paleolithic 47 

PaleoUths 36 

Paleontology 9,  10 

Palermo 55,  61 

Palestine 95,  180 

Pamico  River 169 

Papua 142 

Paraguay 175 

Paris 38,  65,  68,  73,  96,  98,  149 

Parthian  period 89 

Patu-patu 173 

Peary  expedition 1 54 

Pennsylvania 72 

Pere  Blanc 96 

Persia 73,  96,  97,  108 

Persian  art 90,  96-98 

Persian  Gulf 84 

Persians,  the 180 

Personality 30,  31,  118 

Perspective 25,  124,  127 


206  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Peru 165,  170,  171,  173,  175,  183,  184 

Perugino  , 32 

Peruvian  art 169 

Peruvian  statues 88 

Petrie,  Dr 70 

Pfahlgraben 58 

Phenicia 95 

Phenician  art S3,  54,  55,  90,  95-96 

Phenicians,  the 79,  95,  96,  181 

Phidias 186 

Philadelphia 141 

Photography 33,  34 

Photo  secession 34 

Pierre  Sclat^e 36 

Pierre  polie 46 

Piette,  Mons 38 

Pipes 162,  163 

Pithecanthropus  erectus 9 

Pizarro 165,  184 

Plastic  idea 28,  44 

Plein-airist 21,23 

Plein-air  painting 18 

Pleistokene  art 10,  35-46,  49,  59,  81,  90,  156,  178,  180,  183 

Pleistokene  artists 37,  41,  42,  45,  81 

Pleistokene  drawings 39,  40,  41,  42,  43,  44,  45,  50 

Pleistokene  heads 40 

Pleistokene  implements 36,  37,  43 

Pleistokene  period 35 

Pleistokene  statuettes 39,  44 

Pleistokenes,  the 36,  37,  45,  47,  50,  65,  83,  84,  122 

156,177,  178,  182,  184,  186,  187 

Point  Barrow 153 

Polished  stone  implements 47,  143,  145,  166,  175,  176 

Polished  stone  peoples 48,  1 78 

Polished  Stone  period 48,  53,  66 

Polynesians 9,  139 

Pompeian  pictures 58,  59 

Pont  du  Gard 57 

Portuguese,  the 77,  78 

Potter,  Paul 121 

Pottery  sculptures 170,  171,  172 

Prambanan 105 

Praxiteles 186 

Pre-Hellenic  art 49,  50,  178 

Provence 178 

Pueblos 172,  173 

Pygmies 83 

Pyramids 166 


INDEX.  207 

PAGE 

Quality 30,31 

Quaternary  period 35 

Queen  Charlotte  Island. 158 

Quirigua,  Guatemala 168 

Races  of  men 8,  9,  45,  188 

Rapa-Nui 102,  108,  138,  140,  142,  146,  149,  152,  182 

Rapa-Nui  art .140,  142,  144,  147,  149-152,  168,  170,  174 

Raphael 59 

Rarotonga  Island. 148 

Rarutu  Island 148 

Rattlesnake  disc 167 

Red  race 165,  188 

Reindeer 40,  41,  42 

Relative  chronology 37 

Rembrandt 21,  63,  186 

Renaissance 59,  1 79 

Repine 27 

Resemblances  and  differences  in  art 8,  45,  46,  49,  50,  51 

59,  65,  70,  81,  84,  86,  87,  89,  90,  94,  96,  98,  100,  107,  108 
f'^  109,  122,  125,  128,  133,  134,  137,  138,  144,  146,  151,  152 

153,  156,  158,  159,  163,  165,  166,  168,  169,  170,  173,  174 

Rhine,  the 58 

Rhinoceros 36,  41,  42,  43 

Ririomin 102,  124 

River  drift  men 46 

Robin  Hood  cave 41 

Rocky  Mountains 157,  160,  162 

Rodin 29 

Roman  art 56-59,  64,  71,  95,  100,  178 

Roman  artists 20 

Roman  empire 57,  60 

Romanesque  architecture. 178 

Romans,  the. 56,  71 

Rome 7,  57,  178 

Romsdalhom 127 

Russia 61,  73 

Russians,  the 62,  136,  159,  163 

Saalburg,  the 38 

Saas  Maor 127 

Sahara,  the 73,  180 

Sakaptin 157 

Saint  Basil,  Moscow 62 

Saint  Germain 43 

Saint  Luke 62 

Saint  Petersburg 62,  163 


208  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Saint  Sophia 61 

Saint  Ursula 64 

Saluntum 54 

Samarkand 73 

Samoa 138,  146,  182 

Samurai 135,  144 

San  Augustine,  Colombia 169 

Sandefjord 49 

San  Marco 61 

Sarawak 141 

Sargon 94 

Scandinavia 48 

Scissor  action  in  animals SO,  54,  93,  100 

Screens 112 

Seattle 62,  159 

Selinunte 53,  95 

Semitic  art 94,  107,  117,  180,  181,  182 

Semitic  stock 70,  169 

Semites 90 

Sesshiu 32,  108,  123,  133 

Set,  the  god 68 

Seton-Karr,  Mr.  H.  W 66 

Shalmanezer  II 92 

Shem 96 

Shores  of  Wharfe,  the 125 

Shukei  Sesson 122 

Siam 104,  110,  131 

Siamese  art 104,  185 

Siberia 62,  136,  152,  153,  155,  156,  182,  183 

Sicily 53,  95,  179,  181 

Sidon 95 

Singhalese 102,  105 

Sirpoula 86 

Sitka 62 

Smith  Sound 155 

Smithsonian  Institution 66 

Smooth  stone 46,  47 

Smyrna 51 

Sobo  Yakaba 75 

Society  Islands 148 

Solomon  Islands 138,  144,  182 

Solutrfe 46 

Solutreen  period 46 

Somaliland 66 

Sotan 127 

Sousa 96 

South  Africa 82,  181 


INDEX.  209 

PAGE 

South  America 174,  175,  183,  184 

South  Asiatic  art 70,98-106,  131,  132,  152,  173,  180,  181,  183,  184 

Southern  Asia 181,  182 

Spain 37,43,  72,  73,  179 

Spaniards 73 

Spectrum 21,  22,  23 

Sphinx,  the 94 

SpUt  stone 36 

Spots  of  color 18,  19,  20,  1 14,  1 16 

States  of  the  United  States 162,  163 

Steele  of  vultures 85 

Steindorf,  Prof 70 

Steinen,  Karl  von  der 18 

Stokes,  Mr.  F.  W 153 

Stone  implements 144,  146 

Stone  monuments 47 

Stone  period 153 

Stow,  Mr 80 

Style 30,  31,  118 

Subject 27,  44 

Subject  and  motive 27 

Suggestionists 115 

Sumatra 106,  138,  140,  182 

Sung  Dynasty 109 

Switzerland 37 

Syndics,  the 18 

Synthesis  and  Analysis 16,17 

Syracuse 53 

Syria 60,  94,  95 

Tahiti 138,  148,  182 

Tamdrin 106 

Tanagra 51,  54 

Tanganika,  Lake 96 

Technic 14,  15 

Technical  points  in  art 13-14 

Tello 86 

Temples 167 

Termini 53 

Tertiary 35 

Tertiary  man 46 

Thenay ; 36 

Ti,  tomb  of 67 

Tibet 98,  106 

Tibetan  art 106 

Tierra  del  Fuego 175 

Tigris >**=5=JST?i?**^ 84,  91 


210  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Tiles 71,  72,97 

Tintoretto 29 

Titian 20 

Tlinkits,  the 156,  157,  159,  183 

Tokio 101 

Tomb  of  Leopards 56 

Tonga  Islands 146 

Ton-le-Sap,  Lake 104 

Torres  Strait  Islands 142,  143 

Tosa,  the 108 

Tosa  Mitsunobu 123 

Totem  poles 62,  109,  136,  141,  145,  157,  159,  160,  161 

Towanda,  Penn 162 

Toyohiko 127 

Toyokuni 135 

Training 32,33 

Tretiakoff  gallery 27 

Troyon 121 

Tsimshian 157 

Tsunenobu 122 

Tunis 52,  58,  73,  97 

Tunis,  Bey  of 71 

Turanians 96 

Turkestan 73,181 

Turner,  J.  M.  W 7,  21,  25,  125 

Tyr,  Syria 60 

Ucayale  River 175 

Uganda 74,  76,  180 

Ukio  Matahei 32 

Ukioye 108 

United  States 162,  167 

Upham,  Mr 66 

Uxmal 167 

Values 25,  26,  125,  126 

Val  Toumanche 57 

Vancouver  Islands. 157 

Van  Eyck 63,  64 

Vaphio,  gold  cup  of 50 

Venice 186 

Venus  of  Milo 18,  28 

Verona 57 

Veronese 186 

Vibert 15 

Viking  ship 49 

Vincent,  Dr 11,  154 


INDEX.  211 

PAGE 

Vishnu 94,  99,  102 

VoUon 27 

Wagner,  Richard 17 

Washington 65,  150,  151 

Washington,  State  of 157 

Weather,  signs  of 23 

West  Africa 75 

West  Antartika 177 

West  North  Amerind  art 152,  157-161,  162,  163,  166,  170,  174,  184 

White  race 11,  100,  134,  139,  161,  164,  174,  188 

White  race  art 70,  98,  99,  103,  165 

Wisconsin 167 

Wrangel 159 

Wu-Tao-tsz 124,   125 

Yakaghir 136,  137,  153,  156,  182 

Yeitoku 118 

Yellow  race 45,  100,  134,  139,  161,  164,  174,  178,  188 

Yellow  race  art 98,  103,  165,  174,  180 

Yezo 136 

Yoruba 75 

Yoshimitzu 118 

Yoshiwara 124 

Zaghouan 57 

Zambezi 79,  180 

Zimbabwe 78,  79,  181 

Zimbabwe  art 78-79,  90 

Zipangu 108 

Zulus 76 

Zuni  art 153,  156,  172 

Zunis 7,  165,  184 


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